Travelling cameras.

Odeporic reportage in Italian periodicals in the 1950s

Abstract

Travel reporting received a strong boost in the periodical press of the 1950s due to an increase in travel and a new social sensibility that made the "elsewhere," the unknown, and the exotic objects of great interest. After framing the various forms of odeporic narrative (from books to newspaper correspondence and from specialized magazines to newsletters), the paper explores this genre through two popular 1950s periodicals: Epoca and Tempo. Then, the investigation is compared with the writings of Leonardo Bonzi, an explorer who traveled to Africa and China during the 1950s, whose archive contains rich documentation of these trips.
The ultimate goal is to understand the idea and image of the "elsewhere" adopted by explorators and reporters and to verify the possibility of a matrix inspired by a new form of colonialism that uses technological and visual supremacy as a filter for depicting the territories and peoples under investigation.