"Aldo Mieli" Documentation Center

Location CENTRO

Queer archive

The Aldo Mieli Documentation Center was established in Carrara in August 2021 as a natural evolution of Luca Locati Luciani's "domestic" archive, which has finally reached its ideal form, open to the public and available to anyone conducting research on LGBTQIA+ topics.

The documentation center is dedicated to Aldo Mieli, a pioneer of sexual and homosexual liberation in the 1920s, who was associated with pre-homophile movements in Germany.

This choice is a tribute to a figure who is still relatively unknown in the LGBTQIA+ community, someone who paid the price for being Jewish and homosexual in an Italy already subservient to the fascist regime. Mieli chose self-imposed exile abroad starting in 1928. However, the attention to history is not, according to the collective managing the documentation center, something that should remain detached from the present, but rather it is accompanied by a constant curiosity about ongoing socio-cultural changes.

The idea of transforming a personal archive into a publicly accessible institution arises from the belief that research, regardless of its subject matter, should be made as easy as possible by those who preserve historical documentation.

The documentation center is located in the central Piazza Alberica in Carrara, a city deeply connected to its history of anti-fascism.

Currently, the premises are still being set up, and soon work will begin on cataloging the approximately 6,000 books, 10,000 magazines, and countless leaflets, posters, and memorabilia that constitute the true core of the documentation center.

Staff:

Luca Locati Luciani

Guests:

Luca Tondini

Massimiliano Bertelli

Tiziano Lavorini

Marcello Normale