On 7th April 1944 in the Ostiense neighbourhood of Rome, an attack was carried out on the Tesei bakery by a group of women. Ten women were led onto the parapet of the nearby bridge – the Ponte dell’Industria – and shot by the SS. This attack was a spontaneous and unorganised assault, driven by pure desperation and hunger, coerced by the rationing of bread to only 100 grams per family, per day. An instance of unprompted civil resistance, this event led to further attacks on bread ovens throughout the city. This proposal sought to reinterpret this difficult event for the present day, using 100 grams of bread as the central symbol. For this proposal, Heslop, alongside architect Enrico Forestieri, proposed to build a wheatfield next to the the Ponte dell’Industria. Five local schools will sow, nurture and harvest the wheat in collaboration with agricultural organisations. When the wheat is harvested the school children will bake it into 100 gram pieces of bread, replicating the rations given to families during the war. The bread will be disseminated at two feasting events – a harvesting festival and a celebration on 7th April to commemorate the massacre.

This project was part of REcall - an EU Culture 2007-2013 Programme which envisioned new ways of handling painful histories, going beyond traditional approaches to commemoration.