I wanted to see myself in the eyes is the first solo exhibition in an Italian public institution of the photographer Lina Pallotta (b.1955, lives in Rome). Since the 1980s, Pallotta has worked on photographic projects with marked political and ethical attention, recognizing the medium's strong social role.

The Pecci Center presents a selection of the photographs of the Porpora project , taken of Porpora Marcasciano , a trans activist. The two meet on the same side of the barricades in a hot Naples during the phantasmagorical 70s and forge a deep bond. In 1990 Pallotta began to photograph Porpora: they are moments of daily scenes that cross the personal, the political and movement contexts, the disparate geographies of their encounters (the East Village, Rome, Bologna, the Neapolitan countryside) with a close and an affective attention: a bodily and immediate touch emerges.

I Wanted to See My Eyes collects an extended and unfinished portrait of the trans activist: a friend, a companion and a person. Blurred images, contrasting black/white scenes, quick and ephemeral moments return the story and the interweaving of times, places and bodies.

Curated by Michele Bertolino and Elena Magini, the exhibition is accompanied by the publication Porpora, published by Nero, which brings together a selection of Lina's photos, a visual archive with a possible path through the history of the homosexual and transsexual movement starting from the 1970s and some essays on the photographic work of Lina Pallotta. The volume is the winner of the Italian Council 10 tender.