COLLATERAL
 DESCRIPTION 

What Is the City But the People? is a research project that investigates the relationship of interdependence between the city and its inhabitants through a contemporary art exhibition and a series of four meetings. Born out of interdisciplinary research between art and architecture, What Is the City But the People? draws from the concept of Urbanity, theorised in 1968 by sociologist, philosopher, and urban planner Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991) in his essay The Right to the City. This concept is a response to the increasing depersonalisation that has invested significant trends in Western urbanism since the 20th century. To unravel practical issues related to design, it is necessary to reflect on the subject of cities and citizens understood as organism symbionts, in which the influence of one on the other is read as a propeller of constant evolution.

Thanks to the works on display and an archival platform that visitors can consult, What Is the City But the People? is configured as a multifaceted collection of gazes on Milan, a tool designed to stimulate a reflection on the active role of the individual in the actualization and interpretive construction of the contemporary city. The exhibition was created in response to urban growth that is increasingly accommodating to the globalised logic of tourist and transient reception but increasingly distracted from the needs of citizens. The project is an invitation to the imagination and redesign of a new city model, based on each citizen’s reappropriation of public space, to give voice to a choral, diffuse and participatory vision of living.

PUBLIC PROGRAM:
  1. Smart cities: between hyperconnectedness and cyber vulnerability
  2. Caring cities: a look at gender studies and performative practices in the city
  3. Sustainable urbanism: responsible design and greenwashing
  4. Making cities: the role of the citizen in the generation of urban space


ARTISTS: Giorgio Andreotta Calò / Alessandro Calabrese / Irene Fenara
/ Riccardo Giacconi / Elisa Giuliano and Chiara Siravo / Francesca Marconi / g.olmo stuppia / Superstudio / Grazia Toderi / Zimmerfrei

INFO AND DETAILS
 WHAT IS THE CITY BUT THE PEOPLE?
           

  • CURATED BY
  •             Sofia Baldi Pighi
  •     Heidi Mancino 
  •     Giacomo Pigliapoco
  •     Chiara Spagnoli


TYPOLOGY
            Exhibition and
    Public Program LOCATION
           Milan:
Triennale
Urban Center DATES
          November 10th -  
   December 12th 2021
GUESTS
            Florencia Andreola and Azzurra Muzzonigro (Sex & The City) - Alessandro Barile (Institute of Political Studies "St. Pius V) - Stewart Barr (University of Exeter) - Fabio Bocchiola (AD Repower Group) - Aldo Bonomi (Founder Consortium AASTER) -  Leonardo Caffo (Philosopher) - Elena Dorato (University of Ferrara; CITER lab) - Gordana Fontana-Giusti (University of Kent) - Christian Gangitano (Atelier Spazio XPO; Casa degli Artisti) - Elena Grandi (Assessor for the Environment and Green Areas) - Timothy Ingold (University of Aberdeen) - Franco La Cecla (University of IULM) - Marco Liberatore (Ippolita Research Group) - Pierfrancesco Maran (House Councillor and Neighborhood Plan of Milan) - Ezio Micelli (University IUAV, Venice) - Zaida Muxi Martinez (Architect) - Bertram Maria Niessen (Scientific director cheFare) - Silvia Passerini (Ass. Thara Rothas) - Attilio Pizzigoni (Architect) - Rosa Rogina (Director London Festival of Architecture) - Daniela Rossi Cattaneo (Architect) - Italo Rota (Architect) - Henry Sanoff (Architect) - Gabi Scardi (Curator) - Alessandro Speccher (Energy Analyst, Specialized in Green Building) - G. Olmo Stuppia (Artist) - Giancarlo Tancredi (Assessor for Urban Regeneration of Milan) - Liam Young (Director and Designer SCI Arc, Los Angeles)

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