BOOK LAUNCH
Le Nemesiache
Reclaiming Mythological Rituals
edited by Sonia D’Alto
Wednesday 11 March 2026 Archivi Mario Franco at 6:30pm
The Archivi Mario Franco / Casa Morra will host the book launch tour of the first international monograph on Le Nemesiache edited by Sonia D’Alto in collaboration with Marea Art Project, winning project of the Italian Council 13 edition (2024) promoted by the MIC Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea, published by Mousse Publishing. The result of Sonia D’Alto’s research through her frequent visit to the group and her study of Le Nemesiache Archive (formerly Le Tre Ghinee association) and Lina Mangiacapre private Archive (Posillipo), the book collects valuable documents, photographs and unpublished posters on the exceptional procedural and collective nature of their work.
The presentation of the book is a dynamic and participatory dialogue with Gina Annunziata, Sonia D’Alto, Imma Tralli and Roberto Pontecorvo, which recounts and explores the collaborative process behind the publication and the significant moments of the collective, intertwined with contemporary reflections on ecological spirituality, historical reconstruction of feminist solidarity networks, transformative justice, and queer artistic theories. This will be followed by a screening of Le Sibille (1977) on the origins of a myth identified as a vital presence in the archaeological landscape of Cuma, where oral culture, folklore, nature and magic intertwine, “… in the subculture of a type of divination that still survives among the elderly women of Naples…” (Lina Mangiacapre)
Artists and pacifists, feminists and activists Le Nemesiache have promoted experimental creative practices since 1970 rooted in mythology, transcending the fixed coordinates of patriarchal culture. Art is action, it is creative practice to be lived: there is no separation between knowledge, between realization and sociality, aesthetics and politics. Le Nemesiache participated in the change of society with demonstrations and public debates (abortion and the question of wages) and through painting and sculpture (Lina took the pseudonym of Nemesis and when she painted she used Malina, the surname of Judith, founder of the Living Theatre active in Italy in those years, her sister Teresa the name of Niobe and Silvana Campese Medea), writing, poetry and theatre as a practice of self-awareness (psycho-fable), performance, cinema and photography. Le Nemesiache wanted to reclaim the freedom of expression and the cultural presence denied to women (men could not participate in their events unless accompanied by a woman), in 1976 they created the Rassegna di Cinema Femminista (Feminist Film Festival) as a counter-festival to the International Meetings of Sorrento, made several films and awarded the Elvira Notari Award (1987-2002) as part of the Venice Film Biennale to the film featuring a female heroine, and also published the magazine Manifesta (1988-2002) to welcome women’s reflections on culture.
Le Sibille
(1977, S8mm>dvd, 25 min.) directed by Lina Mangiacapre, music and performances by Le Nemesiache, produced by Cooperativa Le Tre Ghinee/Nemesiache
Le Sibille (The Sibyls), Lina Mangiacapre’s third film, recounts the historical and territorial expropriation of mythosophical knowledge reduced to legend: the music of the Sirens, the word of the Sibyls, the dance of the witches. Subversive ceremonies, poetic rituals and stone liturgies converge with acts of reappropriation to bring to the surface the memory of “how progress kills civilization and how, in this death, women’s culture disappears”.