“I heard shouting, I left the bread to rise, took a shortcut, and when I arrived they were already retreating. We were determined; we could have died in prison, but we would have killed them.”

The work is part of ALBANOVA, a cycle of choral textile creations conceived to celebrate the resistance and self-determination of the territories of the Mezzogiorno. Teresa created this public work together with the women of the Raccuja community during an artist residency commissioned and promoted by the Municipality of Raccuja and curated by Collettivo Flock.

Through the active involvement of women and the ancestral practice of sewing, the project reinterprets popular and religious iconography through a contemporary lens.

In particular, “Rosa” takes its name from the Raccuja community’s desire to pay tribute to its own “roses”: the peasant women and hazelnut gatherers who, in the mid-twentieth century, led the agrarian uprisings in the Messina area. In this process, textile material ceases to be merely a support and becomes political substance: through collective embroidery, the fabric transforms into a manifesto of resistance against the abuse of power and a tribute to the historic struggle of women for equality and social dignity.

The tapestry commemorates the courage of these women in denouncing the abuses of the latifundists in the heart of the Nebrodi mountains, elevating the memory of a popular uprising into a universal symbol of justice and liberation.

“The women we are speaking of had no formal education; they possessed only great wisdom, civic consciousness, and ideals. These were women who moved through dark times but redeemed themselves by becoming protagonists of change, proving that here, more than in other parts of Sicily, they contributed to women’s emancipation.” Raccuja in the post-war period

As a device for communal reappropriation, “Rosa” seeks to safeguard and activate powerful counter-narratives, stories essential for the redemption of identities and territories throughout the Italian South.