At the end of the Second World War Italy was in a parlous state; houses and factories had been destroyed, morale was low. The country’s social and economic fabric needed repairing, as did its political institutions. The remarkable images of the Publifoto Archive document this journey and its accelerations and contradictions, some of which we are still dealing with today.

Factory work therefore alternated with beauty pageants, “kitchen stove” with the canteens, sporting events with singing performances, the construction of bridges with the building of houses and skyscrapers. But natural tragedies like the Polesine and Florence floods, and man-made disasters, like Vajont are not overlooked. These catastrophes brought the country face to face with the contradictions of a major transformation, whose priorities did not include the management of its extremely fragile land.  

 As well as tracing the quarter of a century between the end of the War and the Moon Landing, the exhibition - curated by Aldo Grasso and Giovanna Calvenzi -  also plots the development of the mass media, beginning with the lady listening to the radio as she knitted and ending with the magical summer evening of 1969 when the entire world watched the greatest adventure in the history of mankind play out on television, a journey which offered the illusion that the world was about to change as man finally set foot on the Moon. The exhibition  consists of never-before-seen images, often presented in the form of installations, which transform the space of Gallerie d’Italia Turin into a show, not just a display.