Joyce Lussu and Giovanna Serri: literature, weaving and politics in the female legacy of Casa Lussu

Presentation by Claudia Crabuzza.

Abstract

Two women, with the legacies they have passed on, are part and foundation of public and private, international, and Sardinian history, inside a house with a kitchen garden and courtyard in Armungia, a town of a few hundred inhabitants in south-eastern Sardinia. It is a history open to the whole world, by vocation, by belonging, but also by the important legacy that becomes the heritage of all through the experience of the Municipal Ethnographic Museum.

These women are Joyce Lussu, partisan, writer, poet, translator, and Giovanna Serri, weaver, farmer, local communist party leader and recognised intellectual. Both are closely linked to the historical home of the partisan writer and founder 1921 of the Sardinian Action Party Emilio Lussu, the former as his wife, the latter for having been in charge of the management and care of his family home in Armungia for the duration of his life.

The story of these two ordinary and extraordinary women is a fundamental part of Armungia's museum heritage, in which the profound traces of their passage have been collected. Although in different spheres, the two stories are related, literature with traditional culture, the art of writing with the art of weaving, and shared are the passion for justice, political commitment, and the fight for women's emancipation in Sardinia at the time marked by poverty and backwardness.

Specifically, Armungia's Ethnographic Museum, dedicated to traditional crafts, hosts the hand-weaving workshop curated and conducted by the 'Casa Lussu' Cultural Association of Barbara Cardia, granddaughter of Giovanna Serri, and Tommaso Lussu, grandson of Joyce and Emilio Lussu, who inherited and keep alive the great stories and knowledge they received from their respective families of origin.

I am a songwriter, I started singing very early and it has always been my job. I have written songs since 2000 when I founded my band, Chichimeca, in Sardinia. I have four children; I have released seven records and for some time now I have been working on women's heritage and building a female tradition on which to base a new and stronger women's culture. My point of view, also in my master’s degree course in Sardinian Languages and Cultures, remains the artistic one, and the focus of my research in both the literary and the textile craft will be on the revolutionary importance of women's vision and legacy.

A free discussion among all participants will follow the lecture.

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