Unknown Historic Route 66 - Photographic Exhibit

UNKNOWN HISTORIC ROUTE 66  

by Donatella Davanzo

INAUGURATION: November 7, 2019, 6 pmClosing - November 30, 2019

FREE ENTRY

Associazione Italo Americana FVG

American Corner Trieste

Piazza Sant'ANTONIO Nuovo, 6 - Trieste

You can visit during office hours.  

Mornings: Tues,Thurs, Sat . 9-12  - Afternoons: Mon. to Friday 4-7 pm

Highway 66 has been a major road in the Highway Systems since 1926 and has characterized the American driving experience.  

By combining Architectural and Humanistic knowledge with the methodologies of Visual Ethnography, my research project captures the heritage of the historic corridor as a phenomenon that significantly influenced American History and Culture. 

Unknown Historic “Route 66” is an exhibition that aims to illustrate some often unseen aspects of the famous highway. 

While walking along Central Avenue, the section of Highway 66 that bisected Albuquerque - New Mexico, I carefully observed roadside commercial facilities (auto dealerships, gas stations, restaurants, motels, curio shops and signs) in terms of their tangible and symbolic components. 

By exploring these key aspects as the original conditions of existence of the Old Route, my documentary photographs intend to offer a new perspective of the route to reveal how the current uses preserve or adapt its heritage according to different social and economic conditions.  Considering the ongoing changes that characterize the current iconic “Route 66”, this visual documentation aims to stimulate further investigation and be a historical resource for future generations.

The Historic Corridor emerges as a space of cultural and symbolic car-oriented narratives, that, as vibrant expressions have created the distinctive iconic identity of “Route 66”.

Donatella Davanzo - Photographer

Donatella Davanzo, Italian American anthropologist, was awarded a Ph.D. in American Studies at the University of New Mexico in 2018 after completing her Master's Degree in Cultural Anthropology (2004) and a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy (2001) in Italy. Her anthropological works focus on the connection between community and territory. 

Considering photography as an ethnographic tool, she used the visual methodology and the applied research to document the use of space by the Native American communities in the Southwest area and the acequia, the traditional water management in New Mexico. 

She has taken part in Italian projects focusing on social and cultural aspects, such as traditional Venetian crafts and the work of the clown-doctors. In her first book, “Tango in Venice” published in 2011, she used photography to document stories of tango dancers from an anthropological perspective that makes photographic series and framings a true study of people, use of space, and dance as a ritual. 

In addition to many exhibitions in Italy and abroad, her photographic works have also been published in essays, articles, and artistic monographs. She worked as the official photographer for the Italian Public Administration until 2011 when she began a doctoral program in American Studies (UNM). During her doctoral studies, she also attended and completed the Historic Preservation and Regionalism graduate certificate program in the School of Architecture and Planning. 

From 2013 to 2015 and her research project for the doctoral dissertation in 2016, she documented the historic section of the original Route 66 in the urban context of Albuquerque, New Mexico to capture its current vernacular landscape. Her photographic work is now part of the digital collections at the Center for the Southwest Research (Zimmerman Library, UNM).

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