How We Will Live Together?

Dongziguan Affordable Housing, 2016. ©Yao Li

When the Biennale Architettura opened in Venice this year, it sought to address some of the most important questions of our age: How can societies overcome political divisions and economic inequalities? How can we bring people together, and how can architects and others working in public space contribute to this? The exhibition, which was postponed due to COVID-19, runs from 22nd May to 21st November 2021 under the theme “How will we live together?” The exhibition is curated by Hashim Sarkis of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Professor Sarkis has written on similar themes for decades, and has directed multiple architecture projects in Lebanon, the United States, China and the United Arab Emirates. «The question, “How will we live together?” is as much a social and political question as a spatial one,» he said. «Aristotle asked it when he was defining politics, and he came back to propose the model of the city. Every generation asks it and answers it differently. More recently rapidly changing social norms, growing political polarisation, climate change, and vast global inequalities are making us ask this question more urgently and at different scales than before. In parallel, the weakness of the political models being proposed today compels us to put space first and perhaps, like Aristotle, look at the way architecture shapes inhabitation for potential models for how we could live together.» Professor Sarkis said that participants

HOw will we lIve togetHeR?

by Caroline Smith | Images courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

in the Biennale had been encouraged to consider the roles of other actors such as journalists, politicians, social scientists and fellow citizens in shaping urban space, but also argued that architects should be seen as the “cordial convener and custodian of the spatial contract.” Reflecting its commitment to inclusion, the 17th Biennale includes 113 competing participants from 46 countries, with increased representation from Latin America, Africa and Asia. Their projects will be hosted at pavilions located in various parts of Venice, from the Central Pavilion of the Giardini to the Arsenale and Forte Marghera. In addition, “stations” and “cohabitats” will provide visitors with the opportunity to see how architects outside the competition engage with specific sub-themes such as “Across Borders”, “As One Planet”, and “As Emerging Communities” in their work. There are also pavilions dedicated to specific countries (59 in total) at the Giardini, Arsenale and the historic city centre. The Italian pavilion – promoted by the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali e per il Turismo, Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea - is curated by Alessandro Melis, whose work focuses on climate sensitive design. Based at the UK’s University of Portsmouth, Dr. Melis has also been an honorary fellow at the University of Edinburgh and keynote speaker at MoMA in New York, the China Academy of Art, and previously at the Venice Biennale.

Stone Garden North Façade, ©Takuji Shimmura

La Casa de la Lluvia [de ideas]. Courtesy Arcquitectura Expandida The Australian Institute of Architects had intended to have a national pavilion, with Victorian architects Tristan Wong and Jefa Greenaway directing a project which sought to “highlight the potential of architecture to build cultural understanding between first nations peoples and others with a focus on Australia and our Pacific Island neighbours.” However, they withdrew from the event in April due to restrictions connected to COVID-19. Nevertheless, it is essential that Australian architects and urban planners continue to address the themes of the exhibition, specifically inequalities and divisions within our cities, according to Dr. Julian Bolleter, Co-Director at the Australian Urban Design Research Centre (AUDRC) in Perth. «Australian cities are getting less fair and can be said to be fragmenting into different worlds, with people working in higher-paid knowledge-economy jobs living closer to the centre, and people on the fringe experiencing multiple commutes to jobs which often pay much less,» he said. «The Australian Dream is running out of steam for people on the fringes, and the pandemic has been an example of that. People working in knowledge economy jobs like myself can work from home, while others have to go outside the home for work. And research has shown us that punishing commutes really take away from people’s lives, especially the important time they spend with family.» However, he argued that developing

View of the ferry market in Istanbul. Han Tümertekin, 2019. (Photo: Sena Özfiliz)

“City of Los Angeles,” Sixth Street Viaduct. Courtesy Michael Maltzan Architecture

long-term plans for Australian cities was challenging due to multiple levels of government and lack of bipartisan agreement. «The problem is a chaotic system of government in terms of how Australian cities are developed and planned. There’s not a systematic logic: it’s not coordinated between federal, state and local government,» Dr. Bolleter said. This is why the AUDRC has been lobbying for a national vision for cities. «To turn cities around you need sustained planning and parties or interested bodies working together. Otherwise big plans can become just noise.»

U age : N g l a

l ife A Gift f O r

by Jenna Lo Bianco I recently spoke with Emanuela Merlatti about her experiences as an Italian mother raising children resources. One “click” and you have a plethora of Italian books, toys, games, you name it, at your fingertips. And in Australia. Originally from Milan, delivered to your door, no less. Emanuela immigrated to Australia Perhaps we take this immediacy of via Hong Kong in 2003, and, with her support for granted today. I know I husband, raised two bilingual children in certainly have in the past. Listening to Melbourne. Emanuela speak with such passion and As a mother also attempting to raise my dedication about how she overcame these children to speak Italian and English, I challenges really made me take stock of empathised with the challenges Emanuela the gifts I can pass onto my children, spoke of. Our conversation made me thanks to today’s technology. reflect on the many resources and Emanuela and her family would travel opportunities available to support parents back to Italy annually, spending a and caregivers wanting to establish and minimum of six weeks at a time with sustain bilingual households. family, friends, while also touring. This In today’s world of Netflix, YouTube was a special time for them; enriching, and Spotify, native-language resources engaging and, most importantly, an are but a screen tap away. Not an Italian opportunity for their growing children language resource? Never fear! Simply to use their Italian language skills in a change the playback settings on your meaningful way. «For my kid it wasn’t streaming service and the audio magically even an option not to speak Italian,» flips to Italian. Online shopping has also she says. During these trips back home opened up the world of Italian language to Italy they would dedicate special

time, often a whole week, in a città d’arte italiana (a city of Italian art), as a means to explore their language and culture in greater depth. Emanuela recalls how their return journeys to Australia always involved filling a spare suitcase with Italian books, videos and games for their children. These resources helped fill the sleepless nights that followed as they battled jetlag and insomnia. «We have great memories. We spent the first few days with jetlag watching Italian movies during the night, and then watching again and again what we liked the most» she says. Her dedication to raising her children with a strong foundation in the Italian language hit somewhat of a roadblock when they were of school-age. She struggled to find those “in-school” opportunities for her children to continue to study and be exposed to Italian. School “zoning” and geography were the major players in this struggle. The children were eventually enrolled in the Italian program of the Victorian School of Languages. They loved their time there, and they really thrived, supported all the while by Emanuela and her husband, who did all they could to ensure their children’s learning translated into “real life use” outside the classroom. Emanuela is dedicated to and passionate about bilingual education in Australia, particularly for Italian learners. «My dream is to see all schools offering Italian as a second language, and to have more bilingual English-Italian schools from Prep to Year 12. I think for a child, growing-up bilingual is a blessing. I think their natural curiosity is even more nurtured when you can really stretch your knowledge in so many different ways» she says. Thankfully, language-learning opportunities have come a long way since the early 2000s when Emanuela’s children were still young. Nowadays families can make informed choices about what suits their needs, and how they want to integrate language and culture into their children’s lives: private language schools, holiday programs, after-hours programs, distance education, bilingual school programs, special curriculum models, and ICT-rich classroom experiences and resources. Italy and Australia have never been so “close”. Emanuela is really proud of her heritage. She implores us to maintain a sense of pride and not let Italian “slip” away from us. She is looking forward to sharing with Segmento’s readers more about her support for bilingual education in Victoria in our next issue.

tloN

pHilOsOpHy iN tHe diGitAl AGe

by Martina Badiali

Until recently, what came to mind when I thought about philosophy were my high school and undergraduate studies, a compendium of notions and concepts that I was able to understand and explain to others. However, rarely could I find occasion to apply these philosophical concepts in my daily life. For some time now, and more frequently since the start of the pandemic, I have been following Tlon and my view of philosophy has changed. Tlon, as described on the website, is a “factory and school of philosophy, a cultivator of community, a publishing house, and a theatre bookstore.” The founders - and the heart and soul of the project - are Maura Gancitano and Andrea Colamedici, a couple in work and in life who are changing the cultural landscape in Italy. Gancitano and Colamedici address the most pressing issues of the last 20 years, issues made all the more urgent by the pandemic: from feminism to the environmental crisis, from employment instability to self-affirmation and new age movements, and the resurgence of far-right groups among many others. The issues are wide-ranging and are tackled in a spirit of sharing, introspection and open dialogue. Tlon started in 2015 as a cultural events agency and turned to publishing in 2016 with the release of the book Tu Non Sei Dio (You Are Not God). Then it started holding on-line meetings and developing a community on social media. This was not intentional given that anyone who reads Gancitano’s and Colamedici’s books or follows Tlon will know that their position on the digital world is problematic to say the least. But adopting what they call “the digital modality” was born from the need to talk to others about certain issues that were close to their hearts and central to their first book.

Ideas for some of their subsequent talks, as well as some of their books, resulted from questions that they would not have asked themselves, but that came from people within their digital community. The role and impact of Tlon in and on the Italian cultural landscape became all the more profound when the pandemic struck and lockdowns came into effect. Tlon greatly benefited from the fact that it was already a digital platform - or at least partially digital at the time - for this was the only way to be in the public space and involve people in the present moment. In March 2020, Tlon started the Philosophy Streaming Marathon, which involved five million people, and was in fact the first major digital event in Italy. The “digital modality” may have been a strange beast when Gancitano and Colamedici started to adopt it, but all of a sudden they began to understand it as an innovation that creates a bridge between the cultural and the physical. Over the years Tlon has become an independent bookshop and publishing house that is currently listed among the top 100 in Italy. It still clashes with old ideas about culture and publishing, but perception of its role has changed and continues to change over time. Tlon has gained credibility primarily because its voice is always in the present moment and is increasingly connecting with more and more people by each passing day. Currently on my bookshelf are two of Gancitano’s and Colamedici’s books, La Società della Performance: Come Uscire della Caverna (The Society of Performance: How To Get Out of the Cave), published in 2018, and Liberati della Brava Bambina (Free Yourself from the Good Girl), published 2021. La Società della Performance is one of the most important books in my personal development, a book that has answered many questions for me. Why do I always feel exhausted, especially mentally exhausted, by the carousel of work-family-personal interests? Why does engagement with social media more often tire me than relax me? What can I do simply, accessibly and economically to improve the situation? Liberati della Brava Bambina tackles the problems of the female condition in 2021 by calling on feminine archetypes and proposing “Eight stories to flourish”. These stories are mythological, drawn from ancient Greece as well as more contemporary collective narratives, and with the power to either aggravate people’s lives further or to heal. It is this concept that Maura Gancitano uses to help readers find the key to leave behind the roles that have been imposed on them, or at least to be a little more comfortable in them in the meantime. The virtue of Tlon and its publications is the use of philosophy to help us ask questions rather than to give us ready-made answers. I am looking forward to reading Tlon’s most recent publication Prendila con Filosofia: Manuale di Fioritura Personale (Take it Philosophically: A Manual of Personal Blossoming), which I am certain will be deeply engaging but also teach me more about the practical application of philosophy in everyday life.

You can read more about Tlon at www.Tlon.it

A luCky turNArOuNd fOr alkaNtaRa fest

by Kristy Stanfield | Photography by Nadia Arancio and

Giulia Pafumi

Around the world, folk music serves as a source of comfort and connection through good times and bad. In a year marked by fear, grief and separation, it was especially apparent how important art is for the human spirit. With the banning of travel and public gatherings in 2020, the music industry ground to a virtual halt. Among the few live music events that were able to go ahead last year was the folk festival Alkantara Fest in Catania, Sicily. The festival is held in Pisano, halfway between the looming volcano Mount Etna and the sea, with up to ten concerts per day over four days at the end of July and beginning of August. In March 2020, the outlook for the 16th edition of the festival was dire. Just when the organising team were about to launch the final program and start selling tickets, the government announced a nationwide ban on concerts and live events. «The numbers were scary and the pandemic was a serious issue to deal with,» recalls festival director Mario Gulisano. «One thousand people a day were dying, and it seemed like there was no light at the end of the tunnel. Luckily things improved in the following months in ways we couldn’t have expected. So we decided to go on and take the risk and

things went well. July and August were the most brilliant period of last summer in Sicily.» As it was one of the few live events in the area, it drew an audience that was more fully involved and bigger than ever before. «The people, mainly locals, couldn’t believe that they had a chance to see a concert after months of severe lockdown, when all outlooks seemed grey,» says Gulisano. The organising team did not have to change much at all to comply with restrictions, not even the festival format, which is a series of intimate concerts in outdoor spaces with small audiences and no seating. The main challenge was that some of the international acts weren’t able to travel, including two Australian bands, Mzaza and Santa Taranta. Nevertheless, there was enough time to substitute these for other acts. «Since we try to choose music that represents Europe and its traditions, normally three quarters of our artists are international, but in 2020 this was not the case.» Festivals like Alkantara Fest are incredible celebrations of diversity that help to bring people together from all different places and cultures who share a love of music. In Mario’s own words, the most important aspects of the festival are connection, human touch, and spiritual contact. «One of the main aims is to allow musicians to meet each other and foster their eventual artistic collaboration. We want them to stay at the festival, to meet other bands, inhale Sicily and its magic and then go back to their lives with a bit of a taste of it. Moving forwards, we want exchange, mutuality, mingling, letting it happen, falling in love.» With circumstances changing rapidly, the future of music festivals remains uncertain, but the Alkantara team are not discouraged. They launched the festival’s 2021 programme in February, which includes some artists who couldn’t travel in 2020, and some from proposals collected at WOMEX 2019 in Finland. «We are hoping to make it better and better every year. That means higher quality, making it more sustainable, having more volunteers, hoping for more grants, but also putting in more work. Tutto more!» says Mario.

tHe itAliAN leGeNd lUNa Rossa

by Elisabetta Giorgi

Francesco Bruni and James Spithill on Luna Rossa Prada-Pirelli Aotearoa New Zealand retained the 36th America's Cup, narrowly beating Italy by just one point. Luna Rossa Prada-Pirelli co-helmsman Francesco Bruni is one of Italy’s best sailors. He shared the experience of his fifth America’s Cup, and his fourth with Luna Rossa, with Segmento.

In this difficult moment that Italy is going through due to the pandemic, how did it feel to represent the country in the America’s Cup?

«The affection and support that Italians showed was amazing, it gave us the energy and determination to give our best every day. I know that during the lockdown many Italian fans spent long nights watching what was happening in Auckland. We were happy to give them moments of joy in these times of sadness and fear.»

Luna Rossa embraced the Australian sailor James Spithill as one of a few non-Italians in the team. How important is team building and team spirit in a

multi-cultural team? «It was a very positive experience that brought together different skills and cultural approaches. I had already worked with James in the past, and this helped to create a relationship of mutual trust and respect.»

How did your family experience

this America’s Cup? «I was very lucky because my family came with me and lived in New Zealand for six months. We all quarantined for 14 days in a hotel room, and then we enjoyed the freedom of a COVID-free country. My kids went to a local school and loved the Kiwi lifestyle, I noticed that sport plays a key role in the lives of most New Zealanders and sailing is even part of the school curriculum. The rest of the family in Italy went through a roller-coaster of emotions, but were always cheering us on.

In Italy sailing is often considered an elite sport, while in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand it is a very popular sport. Do you think

it’s just a cultural problem? «I strongly believe that it is about policy. Providing training boats to local sports clubs is the first step in making sailing accessible to children. In New Zealand I really appreciated the fact that my children spent a lot of time in the sea. Boats, surfboards and kayaks are for Kiwi kids what soccer balls are to Italian kids.»

Luna Rossa Prada-Pirelli and Team New Zealand.

The Prada-Pirelli Team used Maori language to greet the country that hosted the crew for so many months. Did this acknowledgement of culture make you reflect on your own relationship with your

language and culture? «I am Sicilian, from Palermo, and even though I often spend long periods abroad to compete or train, I feel a strong sense of belonging to my land, and I am proud to represent the Italian brand abroad.»

Yours was the best Italian boat so far to participate in the America’s Cup. Will the Prada fashion magnate Patrizio Bertelli and Luna

Rossa try again? «Yes, Patrizio was happy about the result and I think there is the determination to try again, in three or four years’ time, in New Zealand or elsewhere. We demonstrated we are a great team and can compete at the highest level.»