Returning and Sharing Memories

This paper introduces a pilot project aiming at returning Ethiopianpeople the historical memories about the Italian ephemeral “Empire” in the Hornof Africa (1935-1941). The “conquerors” took away a lot of historical documentsand images, taking advantage of their technological superiority. For instance,unlike Ethiopians, many Italian soldiers had cameras, which were popular andaffordable back then.Thanks to technology now we can duplicate documents – producing exact copiesof originals – without displacing them or changing ownership.Our starting point is to duplicate the visual memories collected in Modena anddonate them to Addis Ababa University, making them available to researchers andstudents. Our aim is approaching colonialist studies in a different way, sharing thehistorical memories with the former enemies, encouraging a joint study ofEthiopia and Italy’s common past. Our hope is to create a lean working methodthat can be used by others, able to stimulate similar initiatives not only fromprivate people but also from the Italian public archives and institutions.