A lecture by Anna Kraczyna
In the early hours of 4 November 1966, twenty-six-year-old American artist Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna was at home with his young family in a tiny rooftop apartment overlooking the Arno when they were awakened by the sound of the river in flood. Believing the waters had already reached their peak, Kraczyna took his camera and set out to document what was happening, unaware of the scale of the catastrophe still to unfold.
Over the course of that extraordinary day and the weeks that followed, he photographed the flood, its aftermath, and the immense effort to rescue, recover, and restore the devastated city, capturing the work of the young volunteers who would become known as the Mud Angels.
Sixty years later, his daughter, Anna Kraczyna, returns to these remarkable photographs and to the story her father recounted throughout his life. Part eyewitness testimony, part photographic journey, and part personal remembrance, this lecture brings a daughter's voice to a father's images, revisiting one of the defining moments in Florence's modern history and the extraordinary human response it inspired.
If you are in Florence and would like to attend the lecture in person at the British Institute Library, please register here or send an email to bif@britishinstitute.it
The registration fee is 15 Euro per person.
To join this lecture online, simply click on this link to register and receive the Zoom meeting invitation: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/r491WlgcRT6Wd_tKe4H1ug . The virtual doors will open at 18:00 Italian time on Wednesday 4th November.
The recording of the virtual lecture will be available for registered participants only. Clicking on the link above, you authorise the British Institute of Florence to use your image, name and comments.
There is no charge to attend the event on Zoom, but we ask you to consider making a donation to support the Institute and its beautiful library if you wish to attend an event.
This lecture is curated and presented in partnership with Palazzo Tornabuoni.