“I’m exhausted after every interview, and also very full,” explains Laura Libralato, the creator and curator of The Quiet Immigrant Project.
“These are beautiful stories that need to be told,” she continues.
For over three years, Libralato, a retired educator with a 30 years plus career, has focused her energy on a unique project that pays tribute to the Italian women who immigrated to Canada, or as Libralato lovingly calls them, the “Femmine Forti” of the Italian-Canadian community.
The project is scheduled to premiere as an interactive exhibit at Toronto’s Columbus Centre on April 24 of this year. The two-month long exhibit will take over the upper and lower levels of the Joseph D. Carrier Art Gallery at the Centre. The exhibit will feature the stories of twenty women, by way of a short narrative, including a favorite expression, or tag line if you will, archival photos, and an official portrait taken especially for the exhibit.
The exhibit will include artifacts that showcase the immigrant story, and a speaker’s corner, where visitors can share their own stories or that of a loved one. A variety of talks, theatrical and music events, and poetry readings will also be scheduled throughout the run.
“The Columbus Centre setting is important because it’s such a patriarchal atmosphere. When people come to the exhibit, we want them to have that ah-ha moment. We hope people will realize we need to do more to pay homage to the quiet immigrants. This exhibit is stage one!”
Libralato admits that when the COVID-19 pandemic started, she and her team were not sure if the project would see the light of day. But Libralato felt an obligation to keep going, especially after two of the featured women passed away.
A highlight for Libralato are the portrait photo sessions, all of which took place in the women’s homes.
“They all have baroque chairs, the regina chair as I call it. I got a lot of joy in making the women feel like queens for the day,” Libralato muses.
The inspiration behind The Quiet Immigrant Project was Libralato’s late Nonna Giula.
“Nonna Giulia had rehearsed a speech for her 90th birthday. I watched Nonna do her speech, and I saw strength. She lived in her home until 93, started smoking when she immigrated to Canada. She was quiet. But that image of Nonna at her birthday party, I realized I needed to document her story,” Libralato explains.
“I called the project ‘quiet’ because every time I approached someone to be part of the project, they always told me, not me, my story is boring. But that was never the case. From a simple group of questions, amazing stories came out, unique experiences that needed to be told,” she continues.
“The exhibit will hopefully be, not nostalgic, but instead a visceral experience. You can read the stories. You can hear the stories. It will be an interactive exhibit. We’re not about, oh so sweet, she’s a darling lady… it’s hardcore. There are going to be some bitter grapes, because there needs to be.”
“My team and I call ourselves Femmine Forti 2.0. We hope to honor these women, the original Femmine Forti, through our project.”
Last month, the organizers launched a call out to visual artists to submit works of art, be it a drawing, painting, mixed media, or a photograph, that will be a part of the April exhibit. Titled “The InHERitance Exhibit,” the submissions are meant to showcase the impact of a strong matriarch in the artist’s life, from the past or present.
To learn more about The Quiet Immigrant Project, please visit thequietimmigrant.ca.
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