my contribution to BiFoto fest 2013

Last June I was asked to say something for the opening of the photography festival 'BiFoto' that is run in my village Mogoro every year since 2011. I decided to discuss the role of arts as a driver for regeneration taking England as an example, and to conclude with a really positive note on the role of the festival within the local area. This a summary of what I said (sorry, it's in Italian):

Quando Stefano e Vittorio, i miei compaesani ideatori e organizzatori di BiFoto, mi hanno chiesto di fare questo intervento per l’inaugurazione del festival, ho pensato che questa sarebbe stata un’ottima occasione per riportare in paese qualcosa della mia esperienza nel Regno Unito. Mi sono laureata in management dell’arte e della cultura all’università di Manchester l’anno scorso e da circa tre anni sto facendo delle esperienze lavorative tra diverse organizzazioni culturali della città.

Il management dell’arte e della cultura è una disciplina relativamente nuova in Italia che non riguarda solo la gestione del cosiddetto settore dei beni e delle attività culturali ma anche la valorizzazione dell’arte e della cultura in quanto ‘risorse’ culturali di un territorio. Le risorse culturali possono essere fisiche, per esempio i monumenti e le opere d’arte, naturali, come il paesaggio, e umane, come le tradizioni e l’innovazione. In Italia negli ultimi dieci anni si è aperto un dibattito che all’estero (mi riferisco in particolare al Regno Unito) è stato iniziato decenni fa, e che riflette sull’importanza delle risorse culturali nello sviluppo locale.

Nel Regno Unito, dalla crisi economica della fine degli anni 70’ e la trasformazione da un’economia basata sull’industria manifatturiera a un’economia dei servizi, le amministrazioni pubbliche locali sono state impegnate in piani di riqualificazione con lo scopo di risollevare le sorti economiche e sociali del territorio. In questo contesto, si è iniziato ad interrogarsi sul valore della cultura, la quale è stata sempre più pensata come una risorsa ‘strategica’ locale. In altre parole, le esperienze post-industriali inglesi hanno dimostrato che la valorizzazione delle risorse culturali attrae talenti e turisti, crea di conseguenza nuovi posti di lavoro, migliora la qualità della vita delle comunità locali, alimenta lo spirito d’innovazione, e attiva così dei processi di sviluppo di un territorio. Tuttavia la valorizzazione delle risorse culturali è un processo complesso che richiede una comprensione attenta di un territorio, un’amministrazione pubblica aperta al dialogo e una pianificazione coerente e partecipativa, per cui le persone, noi, siamo protagonisti.

Penso che BiFoto sia un ottimo esempio di pratica di management dell’arte e della cultura. Da tre anni il festival ha avuto l’obiettivo di valorizzare l’arte della fotografia in Sardegna, scegliendo come sede il nostro paese di Mogoro e i nostri bellissimi locali della Fiera del Tappeto; penso che questa scelta abbia un valore molto importante. Mogoro è culla di molte risorse culturali: le nostre chiese e nuraghi; il territorio; i prodotti agro-alimentari e artigianali del legno e tessili; le tradizioni e le antiche pratiche; la nostra lingua sarda. A Mogoro vi sono anche: bravissimi musicisti e cantanti; talentuosi artisti nel campo dell’arte visiva, come pittori e fotografi; dell’arte performativa, come il teatro e la danza; del cinema; e della letteratura. Non dimentichiamo che il nostro paese si distingue anche per lo spirito imprenditoriale e innovativo di cui la zona artigianale è un ottimo esempio; e per aver un altissimo numero di associazioni, circa quaranta, che sono impegnate nell’organizzazione di eventi e attività durante tutto l’anno. La nostra amministrazione comunale sta dimostrando molto impegno nel valorizzare le risorse culturali del paese e una grande apertura nei confronti dell’innovazione e della creatività di noi giovani.

Mogoro è dunque una sede ottima per ospitare il festival della fotografia in Sardegna. BiFoto è un’occasione per noi abitanti di avvicinarci all’arte della fotografia e condividere un momento importante non solo per il settore dell’arte ma anche per il paese e la sua comunità. In questo periodo di instabilità economica e politica pare difficile pensare all’arte e alla cultura; ma io penso che sia proprio sulle nostre risorse culturali che ci si debba focalizzare e si possano trovare gli stimoli per l’innovazione e la ripresa sociale ed economica del territorio. La nostra cultura e le nostre arti sono le risorse preziose che esprimono al meglio il nostro talento, la nostra creatività ed energia. Per questo penso che sia molto importante che l’amministrazione comunale e noi abitanti di Mogoro continuiamo a dimostrare il nostro supporto a BiFoto lasciandoci coinvolgere, interrogare e ispirare dall’arte. 

Digital R&D in Arts Forum and our project for Mogoro

Last week I went to the conference ‘Digital R&D in Arts’ in Manchester Town Hall organised by the Arts Council England in partnership with Nesta and the Humanities Research Council. People from the national arts and cultural sector gathered together to discuss about the possibilities of using technology in the sector bringing existing examples and reflecting on new opportunities for the sector. I attended the conference as a young arts management graduate and so with the curiosity of who wants to listen and absorb new information and ideas.

My first thought off the top of my head is the irresistible comparison between the UK and Italian cultural sectors and observing how the UK sector is 15 or 20 years ahead of the Italian one (I am definitely not the first one to think it). If in Italy we are still struggling on how to bring additional services such as bookshops or cafè within our museums –although some of our organisations has been doing well, for instance ‘La Triennale di Milano’, many are still stuck with the past-, in the UK, cultural organisations hold a meeting to discuss the use of technology and share ideas all together. Indeed the UK has been undertaking a structured dialogue on the use of technology since the 90s, whereby there is now a special £7 fund (The Digital R&D Fund for the Arts) to support arts project that involve technology.

My second thought and the more developed one, regards my personal experience of using technology in culture that for a couple of months has been the object of meetings and skype calls with a group of friends from home. Everything started one day when all of us were back in our Sardinian home-village Mogoro for the Christmas break and in front of a pint we were reflecting on the cultural assets of Mogoro and how it could be good to do something to make the most of them. The cultural assets in Mogoro are both tangible such as churches and some relevant archaeological sites (in particular the ‘Nuraghe Cuccurada’*), the landscape, the traditional crafts and the agricultural products, among which Mogoro is particularly renowned for the production of wine; and intangible, such as traditions and the Sardinian language. Moreover, Mogoro has an incredible number (around 40!) of cultural associations among its inhabitants (about 5000), that are involved in organising events in the village but that are not always able to collaborate and often compete between each other to obtain funding from the local council.

Thus, the idea that came out from our buzzing mind is that of using technology to create a network among those cultural assets and associations in order to channel the energy of all the actors together into the regeneration of our little village. We think that technology can be the right tool to bring the associations of Mogoro together, to help them collaborate and to make all the actors aware of the cultural resources of our territory. Our challenge is that of encouraging the cultural associations to work together within a virtual sphere in the ideation of events around the cultural assets of Mogoro, with the aim that the virtual dimension could be then translated into a real dimension.

But, can then technology actually help people doing things more easily than in a physical sphere? During the conference at the Town Hall, many experiences were presented and among them one of the thoughts I have found particularly interesting is the key idea of “making things relevant to people” expressed by Ben Templeton, creative director of the digital studio based in Bristol ‘Thought Den’. Technology can offer new ways to engage people together and with culture, but that needs to be carefully and accurately planned. One of the barriers of using technology can be that people don’t always have the same level of technology literacy and therefore they can see a digitalisation of interactions as a distant world and be put off of. It is important to think about what people need and what is the value that technology can actually add to the experience of doing things and engaging with culture in ‘the real world’. I do think that technology can really be an important tool to open new possibilities of engagement and address social needs offering, as in the case of our project for Mogoro, new way of organising existing cultural assets and people’s energies. But I also think that to make our project actually relevant it will be necessary to create a conversation with the people of Mogoro and build firstly in ’the real world’ the basis of what technology can then help to work better.

At the moment, my friends and I are struggling to find funding for our project and in the meanwhile we are working on our next steps to lay the ground. Our question is how easy it will be to bring a discourse on technology and culture in a virgin terrain such as Sardinia and Italy in general. In our country, it looks like that the most relevant support could be received only by private foundations, that in the arts and cultural sector have been the most 'illuminate' actors in the latest politically troubled context. The answer is likely to be: "it won’t be easy at all"! However, we are just at the beginning...

*http://www.comune.mogoro.or.it/paese/territorio/archeologia/cuccurada/

Fatti e storie a Copperas Hill building

The last weekend for the Liverpool Biennial is gone and my experience of volunteering has come to an end. I said goodbye to the cold Copperas Hill building behind Lime street station and to the team of volunteers. I am wondering what the John Moores University is going to do with the building now. The university bought Copperas Hill from the Royal Mail in 2011 but it is still uncertain how the university is going to use the building. Rumours among volunteers reveal that there is a possibility of turning the building into a library/learning centre or a student’s hall, although the later in particular would comport a huge investment to be added up to the high amount of money already spent only to buy the building.

Copperas Hill is a really interesting building where everything seems being still the same as the workers had left it and where some of the original structures could even be mistaken for artworks. I often caught visitors fascinated by the building taking pictures of original walls, doors, boards and other little details belonging to the old sorting office. One day one man came to me saying that he used to work there and that seeing the building turned into a gallery was really strange. He said to have many bad memories about the time working in Copperas Hill but he didn’t tell me anything in particular. One man in the team of volunteers also used to work at Copperas Hill and he explained us many things about the building. Particularly interesting was to find out that the grey mezzanine floor above the whole extension of the space occupied by the exhibition ‘City States’, used to be the place where the managers could monitor the productivity of the workers. The mezzanine floor is made with mirrored walls and floors, in order to allow the manager to look through and not to be seen from downstairs. Also, ever noticed the coloured hanging LFSM lights? Those were used to indicate the post going out or coming in, and the different colours represented a different action. 

I really like how the artworks fit into the space in Copperas Hill and in particular, with regard to the City States exhibition, how in each single area elements of the building seem to be integrated with the exhibition. The City States exhibition was composed of 13 areas, each representing a different city and where each artworks responded to the theme of the Biennial, hospitality, in relation to the state of their city. The exhibition wanted to reflect on the connection between the state of cities and the future of states. I think that the curator of City States did such a good work that some of the exhibition spaces seem interact with or even being completed by the elements of the building. For example, I was commenting with Filomena (another Italian volunteer who worked in Copperas Hill with me) how the empty space between the Birmingham and the Taipei area is not actually empty but is filled with the hanging signs (picture above). Also, how in the Hong Kong area the plexiglas wall seem work as a frame or a window to watch the artworks and how that can add something to the experience of visitors.

Another interesting fact is that many of the visitors came to me asking, for instance referring to piece in the Wellington area (picture above), the question: is that art? Many people wanted to know my opinion on the artworks, which was an interesting thing but also difficult sometimes because of the number of elements present in Copperas Hill. It is interesting to mention that that specific piece in Wellington was made with a table originally belonging to the building which could actually be confused as an tool to sort the post (or even a ping-pong table!). Many pieces of contemporary art in Copperas Hill could be confused with objects of the industrial building that sometimes were even considered as part of the exhibition. Could the intentions of the artist be disconnected from the values embodied by the industrial building? Indeed what was most interesting of the visit in Copperas Hill was the experience of being questioned by an environment where contemporary art can be a means to rediscover memories and feelings, and therefore can assume unexpected values.