Interpretation and Use of Memory How Practices Can Change the Meanings of Monuments

Every monument is designed with a specific meaning that seeks to define a system of values (institutional purposes, political reason, cultural self-celebration). In this chapter I will investigate how empirical users may choose either to conform to that ideological proposal or to reinvent it through multifaceted practices. Theoretically based on the ideas of the Model Reader and of interpretation and use as proposed by Umberto Eco, this essay proposes to consider the ways in which the ideal subject and the empirical subject can interpret and use the space differently. In particular through the analysis of two case studies related to the memory of Italy’s colonial past, I demonstrate how bottom-up protests and practices trigger a resemantisation and stratification of the space of monuments.