In exhibition at Asti, an Italy that made it. One that was looking towards the future

An exhibition has recently opened in Asti whose title says it all: Rebirth. Stories of an Italy that made it. An itinerary narrates the roaring years between 1945 and 1970, years in which our country, left on its knees at the end of the Second World War, quickly bounced back until it found its place among the highest economic powers in the world.

The events of those two decades in Italy are considered by all an exemplary phenomenon of dynamism and creativity, whose symbols remain at the forefront of our collective memory. The Milan underground, the Carosello TV show, the Vespa, the Cinquecento car: the exhibition recreates these twenty-five years through photographs and works of art and design.

Celebrating the Italy of those years today can only be good for us. It helps us to remember the resources and the capabilities this country was able to express and which it undoubtedly still possesses, even if buried under a thick layer of doubt, lethargy and bureaucracy.

Among the many – often contrasting – sentiments that the Italy of that era may awaken in visitors to the exhibition, I believe that one in particular must certainly be censured – nostalgia: an impotent and self-absolving sentiment with which we long for a past that cannot return. The Italy of those two decades was made great primarily by its insatiable hunger for the future. And it is from this same hunger that we must learn to regenerate ourselves again today.