In 1978, in Rome, Sandro Dernini as representative of Spazio A, a performance space located in Cagliari, Sardinia, with Giovanna Ducrot, Massimo Vincenti and other members of the L.I.A.C.A. (League of Italian Alternative Cultural Associations) organized a provocative cultural slaves auction event, where cultural activists and artists sold themselves as slaves for 24 hours. It was staged at the performance space Il Cielo, managed by Romano Rocchi in the zone of Trastevere. There,Maurizio Millenotti, Rossella Manfredi, Flavio Merkel, Paola Muzzi and may be also Cristina Torelli, sold themselves as slaves for 24 hours in a market auction open to the general public. It was a radical action to gain attention on the police’s repressive action against the freedom of association and expression in Italy in that historical period. Among Italian political context of the 70’s, within the Red Brigades and students revolts, the L.I.A.C.A. had a very active role on defending the constitutional rights of freedom’s expression against the police’s tentative of closing most of all alternative cultural spaces as sites of political dissent.
In order to raise attention on the lost of freedom of expression, the L.I.A.C.A. in the summer of 1978 staged an outdoor happening in Rome, in piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, with Dario Fo and many others performers.
The L.I.A.C.A., througth its associations AIACE, Filmstudio70, Teatro in Trastevere, l’Occhio L’Orecchio La Bocca, Politecnico, Alberico, Beat 72, La Maddalena, Mago d’Oz, il Sabelli, La Comune, Cento Fiori L’Officina, il Murales, and others, had a very important seminal role in Rome in the birth of the Roman Summer, a cultural program by the City of Rome, started in 1977 by AIACE, Filmstudio70, l’Occhio L’Orecchio La Bocca, and Politecnico with the outdoor film festival Massenzio, presented in the Roman imperial fora.
The Spazio A in Cagliari was founded by Sandro Dernini, Marilisa Piga, Pietro Zambelli, Piernicola Cocco, Annamaria Pillosu, Paolo Cossu, Emilietta e Paolo Salis.