The Archive ‘Mediateca delle Terre’ (Mediatheque of Lands) is the multimedia archive of the Centro Internazionale Crocevia. A collection of almost 2000 audiovisuals, photographs, slides, teaching aids, CDs and CD-Roms, available to anyone interested in learning more about international solidarity, agroecology and human rights.

This heritage has been built up over decades of cooperation projects with countries in the global South. In its solidarity activities, Crocevia has also implemented communication projects, with the intention of providing communities with new means to offer their own point of view, so as to regain the right to self-representation, avoiding the filter of the Western gaze. For this reason, the contents of the Archive-Mediatheque Library are even more rare and exclusive.

As of 26 November 2021, the Archive has a new headquarters in Rome, at the Casa del Parco delle Energie in Via Prenestina, 175. Here we can find folders and audiovisual media, housed in the premises of the ‘Maria Baccante’ territorial documentation centre. With the Forum of the Parco delle Energie, a network of citizens’ committees that has taken to heart and obtained the protection of this urban park threatened by speculation, Crocevia and the Mediatheque have activated a stable collaboration in the promotion of awareness-raising and counter-information activities. Thanks to a PNRR-funded project, from 2023 we are working on the reorganisation of the archive and the creation of a computerised inventory, to make the contents searchable by students, researchers, activists or other users. In this regard, an agreement is already in place with La Sapienza University of Rome, which has made itself available to activate collaborations with students and lecturers for seminar activities and text research.

The inventory will be published online on an ad hoc platform built on the basis of the Archiui archival description software. The choice of the technological medium is functional for the preserved heritage: it will also be possible to upload the catalogue of Crocevia’s film archive onto the same platform.

Thanks to this project we will also be able to independently develop cultural initiatives such as exhibitions, seminars, screenings and conferences from the archive materials. Finally, the archive and mediatheque library premises will be embellished with a multimedia path created using the holographic projection technique that will produce a thematic visual experience with the support of video editors and technical experts.

How the mediateca delle terre came into place

The idea of creating this archive was born in the late 1970s in the wake of the MacBride report, which highlighted disinformation and all the inequalities in communication between countries.

The Mediatheque wanted to present itself as an alternative, in response to the media model of the time, which deformed reality or partially represented it, especially that of developing countries, and which, in this way, did not give everyone the space they needed
to express themselves.

All this came about thanks to a group of people working at Centro Internazionale Crocevia, including Antonio Onorati, Maurizio Paffetti and Claudio Trovato: they had at heart the idea of giving back to people the right to communicate, and to communicate with each other, without intermediaries. But as yet there was neither a place nor a proper archive, only the desire to allow people to talk about themselves in a way that suited them. The Mediatheque was coming to life.

The slides were the first to enrich the Mediateca delle Terre. Later on, Crocevia decided to launch several communication projects, especially in Latin America and Africa, so that the peoples would rediscover the ability to represent themselves and take ownership of their history. So Crocevia went in search of those people who, in their own countries, would document a fragment of their reality and traditions. It was important for the creators of the Mediatheque to leave plenty of space for productions by local, non-Italian authors, because this was the only way to approach other cultures and counter stereotypes.

This has led to a collection of almost 2,000 audiovisuals, as well as a significant archive of photographic material, slides, teaching aids, CDs and CD-Roms, available to anyone interested in learning more about the issues Crocevia deals with and who wants to make them educational and training tools.

It is possible to consult the Mediateca delle Terre by making an appointment with Danilo Licciardello, head of the Mediatheque, by sending an e-mail to info@croceviaterra.it