D@rts. Co-designing a dissemination event in Carnia (Italy)

From 20 to 22 November, Cristina Balloi, together with Licia Lombardo and Martina Guerinoni from the University of Verona, visited the communities in Carnia (Italy) involved in the project D@rts.

The aim of the visit was to co-design, together with members of the local community and Puntozero, an artistic dissemination event addressed to the wider public.

The participatory approach adopted by the UniVr team is based on the active involvement of the community, in order to avoid imposing top-down proposals and instead build the event through mutual exchange and dialogue.

The purpose of the event is twofold: on the one hand, to create an opportunity for participants in the artistic activities to reflect on what they have experienced and learned through the project and the research; on the other hand, to give back to the community the enrichment gained in terms of cultural literacy through the musical activities carried out with the artists.

The first stop of the visit was a meeting with Agata Gridel, Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Ovaro, during which the current and future impact of D@RTS was discussed.

Subsequently, the UniVr team met with the local project committee, composed of key figures from the community.

Together, they co-designed and defined an itinerant event across four hamlets of Ovaro, featuring music, moments of reflection, visual installations, and the active involvement of both participants and the wider community.

The event will take place on 1 March and will conclude with a final celebration at the Ovaro Youth Centre, open to all citizens.

It will be preceded by an earlier stage, tentatively scheduled for early February, during which artistic installations will be set up in the four hamlets and people will be invited to interact with them, initiating a dialogue around selected competences identified following the first research results.

The visit concluded with a meeting with the artists leading the artistic activities connected to the project, working both with children and with adults and young people.

It was also an opportunity to meet and thank the group of adults and young participants who are actively contributing to the research for their valuable involvement.

The co-design process of the event is continuing in collaboration with the local committee, which met again in December to share ideas for the artistic installations, and will resume in January.