“It could have been me” is a public art project by Sonia Lenzi.

The performing phase took place between December 2013 and January 2014 in the second-class waiting room of Bologna Railway Station, where on 2nd August 1980 the explosion killed 85 and injured 200.

It required the active participation of adults arriving or departing from the station during the Christmas holidays, that are different from the summer holidays, when the explosion occurred, but equally significant from a psychological point of view. Each encounter involved discussion and the delivery of a card containing information about one of the victims and about the massacre itself. The aim was to effectively perpetuate the memory and relive the massacre in emotional and artistic terms, by identifying with one of the victims of the opposite gender.

The photographs formed a monument to the Bologna Massacre, in effect a ‘bringing up to date’ for each victim through the people who have decided to identify with each of them. The Monument was temporally installed in the new High Speed Train Station at Bologna, where currently there is nothing commemorating the massacre. The Portable Monument is an artist’s book in 85 copies to be hung wherever you want, in public or private spaces.