UNLIKELY MONUMENTS
History and memory are, in different ways, a construction, like photography, and do not represent or tell what immediately appears but rather what we want to preserve, reveal, or reflect on.
UNLIKELY MONUMENTS
Excerpt from the catalogue. Map
Sonia Lenzi
A map with the 50 unlikely monuments included in the artist’s book Unlikely Monuments. Excerpt from the catalogue. The map functions not as a navigational instrument, but as a conceptual space in which the unlikely monuments of this series are situated. Rather than guiding the viewer through the city, it proposes an alternative reading of Bologna. By locating the monuments on a map, the work appropriates the language of urban planning, authority, and permanence, while simultaneously subverting it.
Open: 90x60 cm
Folded: 20 x12,85 cm
Printrun: 250
ISBN: 979-12-243-1792-0
Concept, photographs and texts: © Sonia Lenzi
Typography and layout: Sara Murrone
Published by Tosca Press, January 2026
UNLIKELY MONUMENTS
Excerpt from the catalogue
Sonia Lenzi
Monuments dedicated to women who played a public role or gained a noteworthy position in the public sphere, be they ones known, unknown, or forgotten, are undoubtedly unlikely, just like many of the spaces where they are placed in this series, which is simply an imaginary catalogue, like the monuments themselves.
What is also proposed is a reflection on the meaning of "monument", on how we are remembered and how we would like to be represented, perhaps through other forms than the patriarchal ones monuments have taken on.
The catalogue is presented as an excerpt and the series is ongoing. Even the gaps and the cataloguing itself may be filled or continued through proposals, making this cataloguing process collaborative. People are indeed encouraged to find other connections with the places. All these monuments are imagined in Bologna, Italy, the regional capital of Emilia-Romagna.
12. Dorothea Lange, 13. Margherita Hack, 15. Maria Callas, 17. Simone De Beauvoir, 21.Irma Bandiera, 23. Anita Garibaldi, 27. Maria Montessori, 31. Aleksandra Kollontaj, 32. Francesca Morvillo, 34. Frances Thompson, 43. Hannah Arendt, 45. Billie Holiday, 51. Nilde Iotti, 53. Alda Merini, 54. Sibilla Aleramo, 63. Virginia Oldoini Veraris Contessa di Castiglione, 73. Joice Lussu, 81. Olga Prati, Maria Chindamo, 85. Laura Bassi, 91. Ersilia Caetani Lovatelli, 95. Virginia Woolf, 97. Rosa Parks, 101. Ruth Bader Ginzburg, 103. Rosa Luxemburg, 105. Rukhmabai, 107. Anna Kulishoff, 109. Simone Weil, 112. Mabel Hampton, 114. Mathilde Fibiger, 116. Maria Sybilla Merian, 117. Alfonsina Strada, 119. Tina Anselmi, 122. Rosa Genoni, 125. Mary Beatty, 127. Olympe De Gouges, 130. Jane Austen, 132. Teresa Noce, 115. Lavinia Fontana, 138. Anna Atkins, 141. Frances Benjamin Johnston, 144. Maria Ilva Biolcati, Milva, 147. Emma Goldman, 151. Ursula Hirschmann, 153. Florence Nightingale, 155. Alba de Cespedes, 158. Wangari Muta Maathai, 160. Marie Curie, 162. Eleanor Roosevelt, 164. Rita Levi Montalcini.
Limited edition of 20 artist's books
50 digital prints 30 x 45 cm
Hand-sewn pamphlet (12 pp), 30 x 45 cm
Plexiglass case 32 x 47 x 3 cm
Texts, photographs and design:
© Sonia Lenzi
Typography and layout:
© Sara Murrone
Essays:
© Giovanna Calvenzi
© Lucy R. Lippard
© Uliana Zanetti
Published by Tosca Press
October 2024
