THE WORLD TOUR OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ITALIAN EMIGRATION CONTINUES
MEI Experience Room, the immersive multimedia experience on Italian emigration lands in Lima
Genoa, September 27, 2024 – Inaugurated last March at the Kirchner Cultural Center in Buenos Aires and extended twice, reaching a record number of 60,000 visitors in just 80 days, on October 1st the “MEI Experience Room – My roots are here” lands in Lima. This traveling multimedia box on Italian emigration was conceived by the MEI Foundation – National Museum of Italian Emigration, on the occasion of the world tour of the Amerigo Vespucci ship, curated and created by ETT, a Genoese company of the SCAI Group, as a technological partner. The inauguration will be attended by members of the Italian-Peruvian community, including: Massimiliano Mazzanti, Italian Ambassador to Peru, Paolo Masini, MEI Foundation President and promoter of the “MEI Experience Room”, Silvia Vallini, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Lima, Hon. Manfred Schullian, President of the Italy – Peru Friendship League, Mario Borghese, Senator, Fabio Porta, Deputy (both elected in the South American division), and Ciro Maschio, President of the Justice Commission.
The MEI Experience Room is an immersive box that, through full-wall multi-projections, narrates the connection that migratory flows have created between Italy and South America, with the development of different audiovisual content at each stage in relation to the country involved, with peculiarities, stories, and specific characteristics of that territory. The MEI Experience project aims to follow the various stages of the Vespucci to promote and deepen the history of Italian emigration in various countries and, at the same time, provide visibility to the many Italian companies present in the various countries, which represent a real Made in Italy business card of professionalism and, together, an employment flywheel.
The Peruvian leg – made possible thanks to contributions from the Italian Embassy in Peru, the Italian Cultural Institute of Lima, and the Liguria Region – Department of Tourism – coincides with the celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the birth of Antonio Raimondi, a famous Italian scientist and explorer, present in Peru in the second half of the 19th century and already the protagonist of various initiatives undertaken in the cultural scenario of Lima, including the documentary exhibition inaugurated at the Italian Cultural Institute on September 19. And Antonio Raimondi is one of the protagonists of the Peruvian MEI Experience narrative.
Through four videos, the history of Italian emigration to Peru is narrated, in which it is estimated that 1,500,000 Peruvians, 6% of the population, have traces of Italian descent and that 80% of it consists of descendants of Ligurian ancestors. The immersive room will be set up inside the Italian Cultural Institute and will be visitable until December 14, 2024.
The first video, starting from the book Lima la moderna (1937-1969). Migrazioni europee e architettura peruviana by architect Javier Atoche Intili, recounts the participation of Europeans and, in particular, important Italian builders and designers, in the architectural expansion and modernization of Lima.
Un esploratore italiano in Perù is the title of the second video which, as anticipated, tells the story of Antonio Raimondi, a geographer born in Milan who, after embarking in Genoa, arrived after seven months of travel at the port of Callao in 1850, never to return to Italy. Raimondi spent about two decades exploring the country, traveling 45,000 kilometers and collecting more than 50,000 natural samples. He was undoubtedly the most famous scientist in Peru in the second half of the 19th century. His surveys and collections laid the foundations for the knowledge of Peruvian nature and consecrated him as the first man of science to have a complete vision of the territory of Peru. Realized in collaboration with the Raimondi Museum.
In the third video, through images preserved and made available by the family, the story of Giovanni Battista Passano is told who, from a small fraction of Deiva Marina, in the province of La Spezia, arrived in Callao, Peru in 1906. Thanks to 1,000 gold pounds that, in 1910, the Genoese Andrea Ratti lent him to start his business on the shores of Lake Titicaca, with the only guarantee of a handshake, Passano came to found a commercial empire. Many raw materials purchased by him in Peru, such as cocoa or wool, left for Europe and Italy to return transformed into finished products. In 1923 he returned to Italy to sign export/import contracts with various companies, such as Bianchi bicycles, Borsalino hats, FIAT cars, beauty items, and fine chocolates.
The fourth video reports the story of the economist Antonello Gerbi who, born into a Jewish family with roots in Livorno and Venice, emigrated due to racial laws, embarking from the port of Genoa on October 19, 1938, bound for New York – Lima. Once arrived in the Andean capital, thanks to his relationship with the Italian Bank and his profile as a scholar and economic analyst, Gerbi managed to gain credit in Peru on a scientific-professional level. The studies commissioned by the bank for which he worked, combined with his personal interests in the history of Peru, led him to publish several volumes and contributions in various Spanish and English magazines that earned him, in 1948, the recognition of “El Sol del Perú”, the oldest national honor. Realized in collaboration with the Intesa San Paolo Historical Archive.
Alongside the videos, the MEI spot features Luca Vullo, ambassador of Italian gestures in the world, who invites visitors to visit this treasure trove of memory and the present using, in a simple and effective way, precisely that gesticulation that makes us famous. Finally, the “My roots are here” campaign will see the presence of short spots of Italians or Italian descendants living in Peru. To complete the visitor’s immersive experience, a video illustrating the role of Italian cultural institutes abroad. The video is produced by Santoro Comunicare. Finally, thanks go to the partners: PROLIMA, Municipal Program for the Recovery of the Historic Center of Lima, and its destination brand “Lima, City of Kings” and the Peruvian hotel chain HOTELES CASA ANDINA.