Per una storia dell'identità visuale in Sardegna: l'immaginario fotografico tra il 1860 e il 1911

Visual identity in Sardinia: an Analysis of Photographic Imagery Between 1860 and 1911 This study analyses the cultural and social factors surrounding the production, dissemination and reception of photographic images in Sardinia between 1860 and 1911, with particular emphasis given to its role in producing local characters. The aim of the work is to highlight the discursive structures that have integrated photography into a historical, scientific, political and popular dimension; and to evaluate the normative practices and the social effects of the reading of these images, which have contributed to the claim of an aesthetic of transparency and an objectivity of narratives. The study also aims to fill some gaps on the current cultural studies on the Island, reconsidering the presumed neutrality and objectivity of the photographic gaze, encompassing fields that from the monopoly of the sciences extend to the processes of mediatization of the images both in the context of exhibitions and the publishing sector, which was established with the development of the cultural industries in the late nineteenth century. The photographic object, as the carrier of specific visual ideologies, has been summoned up in its various social interpretations, revealing itself as the essential part of the process of the imaginative regional identity. Then, the photos were evaluated in their material status of product of visual artifact, identified historically and technically , and at the same time as a vehicle of support or device, necessary for the transmission of the main discursive elaboration both political, scientific and cultural. The most significant products of the cultural industries (atelier photographs, illustrated press, exhibition catalogues and postcards) are explained in the light of the analysis of some photographic corpus identified in the Parisian archives and in a number of Italian institutions (ethno-anthropological and archaeological funds, archives of geographical societies, the Heritage Institutes of Conservation, albums on the topic of mining, collections of criminal photography).