channeling ‘zine culture and DIY aesthetics, famiglia reflects on matrilineal and trans-oceanic hxstories; on continuity and contradiction over five generations.
the ‘zine is not a monolith; instead it is a fragment built on fragments. it is a conversation about place/sovereignty, love/grief, and collective/contested memory.
based on an autobiography entrusted to the artist by their grandmother, the work traces back to the artists’ nonna, Giacomina Tenni (Zucchetti).
in 1891 Giacomina and her 15 year old daughter Maria Tenni (artists’ Great Great Grandmother) arrived on passenger ship Jelunga. Giacomina grew and sold coffee in the hinterlands of Gimuy (cairns, far north queensland) as means of subsistence.
a tombstone is the only surviving object of their first Italian descendants, along with a collection of photographs portraying the complex nostalgia of colonial society. the artist’s great grandparents’ (Italian and Irish) Catholicism reflects how immigrant communities overlapped.
the ‘zine distills autobiographical references to First Peoples near yarraman/Bunya Mountains, and armed resistance to workers camps on railways in far north queensland.
