Nella donna c'era un sogno… Canzoniere femminista

Aurelia Sansone is an illustrator and cartoonist.
She was born in Rome in 1957 and grew up in culturally vibrant and politically active surroundings. Her father, Nino, was a humanist and a tireless scholar, who wrote for various left-leaning news outlets and attempted to start his own newspaper “La voce della Puglia” with the aim of spreading the ideas of Gobetti, Gramsci, and Salvemini. This upbringing shaped Aurelia’s own ideals and critical perspective.

In Milan, Sansone trained as a dancer for nine years at Piccolo Teatro before completing her academic path at the Brera art academy with a specialization in plastic arts. While working as a teacher at various schools, she continued to produce paintings and sculptures, which were exhibited in galleries and acquired by private collectors (Spazio Temporaneo gallery, Immagini e Splendore exhibition, Immagini della Città exhibition, exposition at Arengario in Milan, among the others). She also ventured into the world of entertainment, collaborating with theater personalities like Dario Fo and Franca Rame and their son Jacopo. The theme song accompanying the credits of the TV show Mistero Buffo (1977) is an example of their close cooperation.

Sansone’s work as a graphic designer had multiple faces; she firstly worked for ARCI (Italian recreational and cultural association), one of the most important left wing social promotion organization, and ACLI (Christian association of Italian workers), an institution of catholic origin born in the post-World War II period, but at that time close to the socialist scene. Afterwards, her collaboration with the Ottaviano Publishing House further expanded her artistic horizons (Il pensiero dei piccoli, La creta, Allevare colombi). She is also actively present within the design studio of architect Vico Magistretti.

Her predominant focus, however, remained on illustration and cartooning, as she found these mediums to be the most natural channels for her straightforward and immediate communication style. She contributed to newspapers and magazines such as “Costruire,” “La Vela,” “Video Magazine,” and “Il giorno,” and she illustrated cartoons for the periodical “Tabloid” of the Order of Journalists for three years.

Despite the milanese cultural context of the 1980s of the so-called “ebb in private”, Sansone, sensitive to the activist wake of previous decades, gives shape to thoughts that are always contextualized and critical of what she considers cracks and clumsiness of her time.

One of Sansone’s most significant projects was her contribution to the feminist songbook Nella donna c’era un sogno in 1976, for which she designed the cover and twenty pen illustrations.

In the late 1980s, Sansone started experiencing symptoms of schizophrenic psychosis, eventually leading to her hospitalization. Despite this, she continued to produce prolifically, exploring themes such as love, social conventions, metropolitan civilization, the media, and the human psyche.

Most of Sansone’s work since her hospitalization has remained unpublished, with only a fraction of it appearing in small publications like Scusi dov’è l’uscita? edited by Assunta Signorelli and Maria Campitelli in 1992. Throughout her life, despite her seclusion, Sansone’s artistic output has been a testament to her resilience, refusing to be defined solely by her psychiatric condition and nevertheless describing scenarios of rare 
lightness and delicacy.

Archives and sources
 

• Fondazione Dario Fo e Franca Rame 
  località Santa Cristina n°14 - 06024 Gubbio (PG)
• Archivio Primo Moroni
  Via Conchetta 18, 20136 - Milano (MI)
• Archivio dell’Ordine dei Giornalisti
  via A. da Recanate 1 - 20124 Milano (MI)
• Fondazione studio museo Vico Magistretti
  via Vincenzo Bellini 1, Milano (MI)
• Centro documentazione donna
  Strada Vaciglio Nord 6 - 41125 Modena (MO)
• Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze
  Piazza dei Cavalleggeri, 1 - 50122 Firenze (FI)
• Biblioteca Diffusa del Comune di Trieste 
  Piazza Hortis 4 - 34124 - Trieste (TS)
• Biblioteca Teatrale Molinari
  Via Farini 23 - 48012 - Bagnacavallo (RA)
• Archivio Biblioteca Mediateca della Fondazione I Teatri
  Piazza Martiri del 7 Luglio 7 - 42121 - Reggio nell’Emilia (RE)
• Sistema Bibliotecario di Milano 
  Corso di Porta Vittoria 6  - 20122 - Milano (MI)