info
/
1
2
3
4
5
·
·
·
·
·
×
Una Donna di Due Isole
A te, mia cara, lascia che ti racconti una storia
To you, my dear. Let me tell you a story.
My Great Grandmother, Rosa Criscillo, was so brave. But maybe they all were, these women who traveled, who married, who bore the children and made the homes. They didn’t start out knowing how to do those things. They learned, by doing, under the example of their own mothers and grandmothers, and later, out of necessity. That bravery wasn’t enough to really make the history books though. Her husband, who created a happy life with her, is the one most clearly remembered in written form. He is the most photographed, because his exploits were more overtly interesting. Who thinks about the woman at home who is heating the stove, mixing the dough, scrubbing the linens, tatting the lace? He is marching over hills, rowing in boats and negotiating in pounds. He is worthy of remembrance.
But she was also worthy. When she married Antonino Moleta, she had barely stepped off the Moeraki on Wellington waterfront, after a dark and sickening journey from Stromboli. A journey of many legs. She didn’t have her sea legs.
She wore the gown as she stepped from the ship, the gown so carefully crafted in Napoli, for that exchange between Criscillo and Moleta. This lilac silk began her new life as a wife, to a man she had not met, in a country she had not seen.
Her bravery, and her brand new husband, took her to D’Urville - Rangitoto ki te Tonga - where the sea was all around. Something a little like home - without hot sunshine and the volcano that still spits fire into the sky. This new home had no running water, no electricity, no radio. But there were sheep and fish and soon there were many babies. There was also love.
Francesca
Angela Margherita
Elena Eleanora
Mafalda Eileen
Antonino Giuseppe
Salvatore Fioreavanti
Giuseppe
Vincenzo Fiore
Maria Stella
Bartolomeo
These Italians made a mark, and a legacy. I claim it as my own, and I share it with you. We are tethered to that lilac coloured past, and we cast it before us like fishing nets and skeins of wool and newly formed lace. We roam our own hills and paddle in the shallows, echoing the footsteps that Rosa took in her own time.
Prendiamo in prestito il coraggio dalle donne che ci hanno preceduto
Let us borrow bravery from the women who walked before us.
Amber-Jayne, daughter of Marie-Jean, granddaughter of Pearl and Beryl, great-granddaughter of Martha, Sophia, Ida and Rosa.
A letter to my own imagined great-granddaughter, whose life will carry the legacy of all of these women
Una Donna di Due Isole, 2022, Installation at {Suite} Gallery, Cuba Street, Wellington