An Independent Woman

It is fascinating to write about Elena Guaccero again after 14 years, when I graduated in cultural heritage conservation at Ca’ Foscari with a thesis on her.

Thinking back on it now, as I am writing these words, I think it was she who planted in me the seed of curiosity about all the ‘industrious’ women who, in various eras, have worked quietly to produce, protect, save or promote the great cultural heritage that makes up our country.

These unusual stories tell of special, strong women with brilliant minds, like that of Elena Guaccero who, despite my best efforts, I was never able to meet in person.

But to get a good idea of what sort of person she was, you just have to enter her world and see what she left us: an enormous collection of objects, all created by her: furniture, paintings, drawings, letters and projects, all enclosed in this sort of treasure chest that is her Venetian home. Not a normal house – if a house in Venice can ever be defined as normal – but a real artist’s house, with oval doors, drawers that come out of the wall, the laboratory of this eclectic woman who lived completely immersed in her universe.

A world that I explored at length together with Anna Maria (her daughter) and Paola (the professor who introduced her to me), which completely absorbed me and made me want to propose a project that could open this show to the public. Because Elena must be made known, as Anna Maria always does, by organising workshops, guided tours and exhibitions.
But one thing in particular has stuck in my memory from that time when I was busy studying everything I could find about her: a beautiful black and white photo that shows her in the middle of a building site, surrounded by a group of men who were accompanying her. But she is not a visitor, a guest; that is her building site, of one of the buildings she created, which is the Rai headquarters in Bari. That is how Elena Guaccero is for me, a woman who conveys authority and competence, but who above all exudes independence, especially intellectual independence.

Elena Lana