Two years after its initial presentation in Lyon, the exhibition Ciao Italia! Un siècle d’immigration et de culture italiennes en France (1860–1960) returns to the local Italian Cultural Institute. The opening was held in the presence of Stéphane Mourlane, curator of the exhibition and researcher at Aix-Marseille University, and Isabelle Renard, Deputy Director of the National Museum of the History of Immigration in Paris.
The exhibition was first conceived in 2017 by the Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration in Paris (Palais de la Porte Dorée), as a reflection on the history of Italian immigration to France — the most significant migratory movement in French history. Between suspicion and aspiration, hardship and passion, rejection and integration, the exhibition narrates the story of Italians who migrated to France, highlighting their contribution to French society and culture, and tracing their geographical, socio-economic, and cultural journey from the Risorgimento in the 1860s to 1960.
The original exhibition was later streamlined and made its Lyon debut in 2023 at the loft space of the Italian Cultural Institute. Following a rich itinerary — from the Municipal Stadium of St Jean de Bournay, to the Boulodrome of Le Pont de Claix, the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Media Library in Chambéry, Espace H2M in Bourg-en-Bresse, and the Dante Alighieri Society of Clermont-Ferrand — the exhibition is now back at the Italian Cultural Institute in Lyon, where it will remain open to the public until 16 September 2025.
