The exhibition ‘The Forgotten Factory’ has landed in the place that best interprets its essence, namely the images that photographer Luca Comerio shot for the Sutter and Thevenot factory in Castellazzo, which went down in history for the tragic explosion that on 7 June 1918 caused hundreds of deaths and injuries, especially young women who were the majority of the employees, as is well depicted by the shots on display. In fact, the cloisters of the Società Umanitaria in Via Daverio in Milan, where the exhibition can be visited until 30 July, contain precisely the two elements that are at the heart of the exhibition: sociality and historical memory. The Umanitaria was founded at the end of the 19th century in Milan with the aim of combining assistance and socio-educational promotion towards the weakest and from this intuition, popular housing settlements sprang up in various areas of the city, accompanied by training and work courses including, the most famous, those of photography and decoration.
The far-sightedness of the founders of the Milanese mutual aid society and the managers of the Bollatese factory, who called in a high-ranking photojournalist like Comerio to immortalise the company’s departments and working conditions, was emphasised in his introductory speech by the critic Roberto Mutti, one of the leading experts on photography, who underlined the scope and quality of the images that have re-emerged from the archive, ‘yet another demonstration of how photography represents the story of the people who work in the factory.
The former mayor of Milan Carlo Tognoli, framing the historical period of the time, recalled how the events of the early 20th century gave rise to Ambrosian reformism: ‘even in the institutions, attention to public assistance and social services began to take hold’. Giordano Minora and Antonio Pastore retraced the genesis of the exhibition, which came about by chance from a publication on the restoration of the small church of the Fametta, which was followed by passionate research that led to the re-emergence of the episode known as the ‘explosion of the Castellazzo powder magazine’ and, subsequently, to the discovery of Comerio’s photo album in the Spoleto state archives. This led to the work that resulted in the exhibition, thanks to the meticulous and careful collaboration of historian Gian Mario Pasi and photographer Giordano Bordegoni, to whom it is dedicated.
“Bollate is also able to export culture through the re-presentation of a tragic event in its history”
This was Mayor Francesco Vassallo’s proud and satisfied comment at the end of the presentation.
