Faro Cratere: a bottom-up participatory resilience strategy vs the recent central Italy earthquake
Faro Cratere: a resilience strategy vs the earthquake that almost destroyed 140 towns in central Italy in 2016, and still threatens the very existence of the local communities: a bottom-up participatory process that involves them and helps to safeguard their identity, memory, and future. Building an archive of the memory of life and work in the historic towns. Enhancing the "human capital" of the dispersed community that left the old towns, and bridging it to the one will enter them when rebuild
Regional
Italy
Abruzzo, Marche, Lazio, Umbria Regions
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Faro Venezia Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Patrizia Last name of representative: Vachino Gender: Male Nationality: Italy Function: president Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Leonardo Loredan, 7 – Lido Town: Venezia Postal code: 30126 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 380 305 3078 E-mail:info@faroitaliaplatform.it Website:https://farovenezia.org/
The Faro Convention assigns to citizens a direct responsibility for the enhancement of the common goods that they feel their own, in a participatory process to be activated through the Heritage Communities, as open and plural subjects.
After the ratification of the Convention with the law 2020/133, to enhance the complexity of the Italian cultural offer, the Council of Europe proposed to launch the Faro Italia Platform, as dynamic census of Heritage Communities (HC) and their thematic and territorial themes. The platform, inaugurated in December 2021, has given new impetus to heritage communities in Italy, and in the crater area especially, to safeguard the threatened community.
Faro Cratere (FC) sets up the HCs dedicated to not wasting the "human capital" of the witnesses of life and work in the villages hit by the 2016 earthquake. In 2018, with a group of local institutions and associations, FC produced the documentary "Enterprise and genius loci, beyond the horror of the earthquake” here, to give them a voice, which was the start of the “archive of the memory” of FC.
The community that resided in the villages affected by the 2016 earthquake was damaged twice, the first in the destruction of physical assets, the second in the progressive loss of witnesses of life in the villages. If the reconstruction of the first is starting, the archive is taking care of the second, because the community that will enter the reconstructed villages will risk having cut ties with its past, without having recorded the memory of the use value of those places. It is immediately necessary to save human capital from the dissipation of age and events, to incorporate it into a living archive of memory.
The FC project is reported among the best practices by the Council of Europe in the publication "The Faro Convention at work in Europe: selected examples", chapter "Faro for the earthquake" on page. 56 here, where the activity of Faro Venezia is also described on page. 15.
participation process
heritage community
crater sustainability
citizens resilience
memory archive
The earthquake disaster meant an astonished dismay in the face of the tragedy, from which the resilience capacity of people and institutions slowly emerged: we should invest our experienced skills of participatory processes on relaunching communities in crisis, developing a working hypothesis on the implementation of the Faro Convention in those mountain areas. The idea was born from a local working group, open to the contribution of citizens, associations and local institutions: Faro Cratere initially proposed patrimonial walks with the objective of sensitizing institutions and citizens on the Convention and giving impetus to participatory management of the tangible and intangible cultural heritage.
In the affected territories, the very sense of identity of the delocalized communities is in crisis, the financial and cultural sustainability of the territory is seriously threatened. The reconstruction will take years, therefore it is necessary to start actions, allowing the sense of community to keep alive and pass on. There is a need bridging the unnatural distance created by the earthquake between citizens and their material and immaterial cultural heritage, enhancing it for themselves and for future generations.
Faro Cratere started from the conference in Strasbourg of the "European Faro Community" immediately after the second and most destructive earthquake, on December 2016 (see attachment). FC shared the urgency of experimenting specific actions to consolidate the heritage communities at risk, towards the creation of a digital archive of the citizens' private and collective history: a " widespread house of memory", as a physical place to collect and communicate the digital archive, to give them a sustainable future.
In this sense, the heritage communities are often also engaged in environmental protection; together with superordinate local institutions such as national parks and regions, and cultural institutions such as universities and local museums.
Today there are already ten communities that make up the Faro Cratere Network in the Faro Italia Platform. Each of the 10 has at least 5 local subjects, thanks to the work of many associations and public administrations: they include the towns of Accumoli, Arquata, Caldarola, Falerone, San Ginesio, Sant'Anatolia di Narco, Roccafluvione, Tolentino, Visso.
All together they create a participatory and resilient network, aimed at improving the quality of life and the habitat, in a process of awareness of the values that binds them to each other, and to the territory.
The networks of Heritage Communities identify and value a bottom-up process in which each one has to learn from the others, at least as much as they have to teach, and only together can they improve, be more effective and incisive for their "common goods".
The Platform encourages a permanent mutual learning process in the networks of HC and for this reason Faro Cratere is building a memory archive of all the villages affected by the earthquake: as shown by the documentaries made and the interviews narrated in the social networks (youtube o facebook). Faro Cratere promotes, beside the digital archive: to peer training in lifelong learning; collaboration on educational tools with institutes at various levels, from high school to university; the organization of thematic workshops for the exchange of experiences on an interregional, national and international scale; looking for funding and partnerships at regional, national and European level, such as this call.
Service-Learning educational paths have been launched with 3 high schools to build a bridge between the generations, between the witnesses of life and work in the villages hit by the earthquake and the students called to narrate them through audiovisual productions. They are producing audiovisuals on the town of Camerino, Visso, and Caldarola.
The community devastated by the earthquake is made up of a plurality of subjects very different from each other, in terms of ability, age, origin, wealth, life perspective, etc... Now these subjects are dispersed or isolated: Faro Cratere builds a bridge between them, as between the generation that has abandoned the villages affected by the earthquake and the one that will enter the villages when they are rebuilt, the risk is that then the soul of the stones, the genius loci, will be missing, and the new walls will remain silent of the vibrations of the values of 'use lost. FC gives voice to the different souls that gave meaning to the villages, building and living over time, transmuting them into an inclusive memory archive. One could say that the earthquake offered a terrible new version of denied accessibility; in fact, all citizens have been expelled from their places of affection and life, some speak of it "as if my leg had been taken off". A conception of "disability" that must be taken into account in resilience processes, because it really puts the local community under stress.
A strong empathetic intervention is needed to reactivate ties with the past, sometimes removed, a source of suffering due to deprivation, as our many interviews carried out demonstrate, and as is known in the case of "post-traumatic stress".
In this sense, we have involved associations in the disability sector, especially dedicated to communities with mental problems for two purposes: to include, starting with them, also "disabled" people in the participatory process for the enhancement of cultural heritage, and to bring into play tools and mediums that only specialists know how to recognize and apply towards citizens who have become "fragile".
According to the Faro Convention, citizens, associations and businesses represent a resource for the enhancement of the heritage in which they identify, under the aegis of the public administrations which have institutional responsibility for them. Historical artifacts are inextricable from their use value, they must be understood and told through the experience of witnesses, heirs of traditions, crafts and techniques that give meaning to those places.
Faro Cratere has elaborated a sequence of testimonies capable of keeping together passion and culture, art and market, production and tourism, innovation and tradition, available in the social networks as indicated.
Our activity finds its foundation in a theoretical and international framework, but it is very concrete and involving on the territory through a contextualized and bottom-up, site-specific and bottom-up process, in order to trigger effective participation between public and private actors. We began with the identification of witnesses, to then involve the local associations and, with them, the municipal administrations, finally we collaborated with the superordinate institutions. We are grateful for the collaboration of each of the many cultural associations involved, the Marche Region, the Municipalities of Visso and San Ginesio, Confartigianato Imprese Macerata, the Universities of Cà Foscari and Macerata, the Monti Sibillini National Park, and Symbola.
The documentary "Enterprise and genius loci: beyond the horror of the earthquake" was previewed on 12 November 2018 in Macerata at the Confartigianato headquarters, with a large participation of citizens and institutions that contributed to its creation. Since then the Faro Cratere has been enriched up to this candidacy, which now represents a plural subject implementing the archive of the memory of the earthquake-stricken villages, thanks to the aggregation factor put in place, as emerges from the complexity of the subjects actively involved .
Faro Cratere is animated by a complex and integrated system of actors:
• the Heritage Communities (HC) registered are ten, each made up of more than 5 members: from the respective municipal administrations (7), cultural associations (22), cultural institutions (8), and businesses (5) (see attachments);
• these CPs are distributed in the regions of Abruzzo, Marche, Lazio, Umbria affected by the earthquake, with which discussions have been initiated to expand the methodology to different contexts;
• they are registered in the Faro Italia Platform promoted by Faro Venezia for the Council of Europe, active partner on the process;
• artizans associations representing the interests of businesses and professions at risk in the crater are involved: from the outset we have had the active support of Confartigianato Marche and Macerata;
• the activities are supported by local universities for educational and training strategies, such as the University of Macerata (see attachment), the University of Camerino, and the School for Reconstruction in Accumoli, which have hosted conferences about FC (see attachments);
• high schools also participate in the CF education and training process: three high schools have started Social Learning activities on FC (see attachment);
• the associations in the area have been coordinated from the outset by Venti di Cultura, here, which undertakes to continue and extend their involvement;
• we pay particular attention to the integration of "disabled" people in the process, also thanks to the involvement of the Opera cooperative (see attachment).
• the Sibillini National Park insists on the territory of the crater, which constitutes the ideal interface for the sustainability of the project;
• finally, a reflection was started with ICOMOS Italia to explore the possibility of expanding the methodology to other cultural contexts.
Many disciplines contribute to the enhancement of cultural heritage and every activity in this regard must start from their recognition, not only based on professional respect, but also on active involvement. Professionals of different natures are often promoters and propellers of Heritage Communities (HC), starting from the fact that people with different backgrounds and experiences often arrive at very similar conclusions, especially when it comes to participatory cultural processes, such as for the Faro Convention.
It is necessary to valorize the trades and professions that are the 'glue' of the community: insiders who represent the many professions and operate in the vast sector of participatory cultural processes are involved in the Faro Cratere (FC) project.
Here is an initial list of cultural heritage professionals intercepted in the construction of HC: university professors, museologists, archaeologists, researchers, trainers (lifelong learning), storytellers, architects and urban planners, artisans, farmers, cultural managers, anthropologists , sustainable tourism operators, ecomuseum facilitators, heritage gamers, community journalists and psychologists, geologists, environmental engineers, sociologists, changemakers - thus calling the experts of new sustainable trades who are often young, digital, manual, artistic: a valid interface with the future of FC.
Regard to this theme is given by the law ratifying the Convention (L.131, art.3.2), which must be implemented "also by safeguarding the professional figures involved in the sector". The added value of FC lies precisely in experimenting with new models of aggregation between professionals and institutional subjects, to define together effective participatory strategies in safeguarding and enhancing common goods.
Safeguarding and enhancing the cultural heritage are generic buzzwords, now inflated: FC has launched a strategy capable of overturning the telescope and starting from the bottom, from the needs and words of citizens, witnesses of the use value of cultural heritage. Shifting attention from the aesthetic and ecstatic value of heritage to its use value is one of the founding elements of the Faro Convention, such as considering tangible and intangible heritage as inseparable. FC demonstrates that very often the second constitutes the key to understanding the first, empowering all those who identify with a particular cultural heritage, giving the experience of the place a leading role in its valorization.
As innovative process, FC proposes a new model of interaction between the network of patrimonial communities and the stakeholders who deal with the same issue at various levels, and who have significant responsibilities for the valorization of the specific asset on which the CP has been activated. In fact, the participatory process promoted by each PC is proposed by FC to support the elaboration in focus groups dedicated to tools that can give effectiveness to the action. The prefigured focus groups are themed for the subjects involved: Regions, cultural/environmental associations and municipal administrations, associations for the "disabled", businesses, universities, and finally high schools.
As innovative project, FC proposes to innovate the digital tools of collection and dissemination the memory archive, which have already been implemented. In the continuation, the most sophisticated geo-referenced software will be used in such a way as to guarantee easy use of the contents, and their equally easy implementation by the heritage communities. FC will constitute an interactive digital platform available to users to carry out an augmented reality experience of places, which are thus enriched by the depth of life by the witnesses in the places they visit.
Facing the challenge of globalization, the ability to valorize local resources is becoming more and more important. In fact, Faro Cratere experiments and disseminates tools and methods for involving local communities and superordinate institutions that can be exchanged, explored, extended with communities and institutions facing similar problems in Italy, Europe and the world. The Faro Convention is operative in 24 European countries which express a vivacity in the construction of heritage communities, and which therefore become the main interlocutors for the dissemination of the CF process.
The transfer of FC experience takes place:
• in the participatory methodology, thanks to the international activity of Faro Venezia, in charge of the Faro Italia Platform as a prototype to be expanded in other European countries;
• in digital storytelling technologies, thanks to the contagion of skills from the Faro Community to which FC belong and, for example, the authors of the Lithuanian “genius loci” project, already winner of the New European Bauhaus Prize last year;
• in processes of resilience to natural disasters, for which FC represents a good practice recognized at national and European level;
• in site-specific projects of heritage communities, such as for example the enhancement of their food and wine resources: these acquire meaning in becoming thematic networks in common with other CPs in Italy and abroad, to team up, and count,
• in social learning with high schools, which take steps to catalog the memory of the territories, and which become a common ground for exchange, such as for example in a school documentary festival in preparation,
• in university research projects, such as the design laboratories that take place in the crater, for example that of the heritage community of Falerone, which become a platform for international comparison and experimentation.
The bottom-up participatory process is indicated by the Faro Convention as the inclusive and sustainable method for keeping heritage communities dedicated to enhancing their "common good" together and making them effective. In this sense we have applied it since the conception of the idea of Faro Cratere, immediately after the second devastating shock of the 2016 earthquake. When we presented the proposal for the archive of the memory on the villages affected by the earthquake at the Faro Community conference in Strasbourg in 06/ 11/2016 (see attachment). Since then we have dedicated ourselves to listening to the needs of the communities and involving them in the project, together with local administrations, cultural associations, superordinate institutions such as the Region and the Park, schools and universities, businesses and associations. An indefatigable journey that enriches each step with content and tools, ready to catalyze them with this candidacy. Where the future path is already methodologically structured, because involving the subjects listed in thematic focus groups, so that they can inspire and guide the Faro Cratere process. An innovative approach to participation that involves stakeholders in listening and narrating, with a role of consolidating their strategies on their respective cultural heritages and disseminating them in similar institutions.
The method used for the memory archive extends the project already awarded by the NEW EUROPEAN BAUHAUS to a polycentric and vast vast territory and its institutions, namely GENIUS LOCI: A DIGITAL MAPPING TOOL FOR ETHICAL URBANISATION KAUNAS, LITHUANIA also for the common inspiration to the Faro Convention and membership in the European Faro Community.
Disaster resilience strategies is a challenge common to many areas in crisis, threatened by human disasters, such as wars, or natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, etc. Unfortunately, we live in times where the war has come very close to the center of Europe, and the methodology we are applying on CF could certainly be useful to face the next post-war reconstruction if participated. Where it will certainly not be necessary to rebuild only the destroyed buildings, but the community devastated at least by deportation. Even the climate crisis confronts us with similar problems, where the acceleration of rainfall, for example, produces floods and landslides much more frequently than in the past. As is the case of the recent alluvial landslides on the island of Ischia which claimed many victims among the inert population and created thousands of displaced persons.
Therefore, the cases of deported communities are multiplying, and of necessary reconstructions not only of the artifacts but of peaceful and supportive living. Thus, in its small way, Faro Cratere becomes a paradigm that should really be tested and relaunched in the community of the New European Bauhaus, to engage ourselves all together in the face of very difficult challenges. Only creativity, moral commitment, obstinacy of a collective action, can deal with some hope of being effective on those grounds. FC was in the limited, yet huge, community of town affected by the earthquake in central Italy, and certainly would like to take on this challenge together with many subjects of good will and specific skills that we will be able to find in this common path.
The Faro Cratere Network is already structured and has produced tangible results, such as the launch of the memory archive and the involvement of the necessary stakeholders.
The award would make it possible to achieve further precise objectives, to consolidate the network and expand contents and methodology at the local, national and international level.
The prize resources would be allocated in equal parts to three activities:
A. community workshop: national and international conference on narratives of heritage of communities and high schools.
A.1. first section dedicated to heritage communities, where those of FC are called to present their activities, together with representatives of the Faro networks, here, Italian thematic or territorial networks, with also some international interventions on European good practices.
A.2. the second section is dedicated to high schools, with a review of documentaries produced by students on the memory of heritage communities, in which FC schools and other Italian Faro networks participate.
B. archive of memory: digital application for networks of Italian heritage communities:
B.1. creation of the software dedicated to a database of the testimonies collected, on a georeferenced digital platform, and its implementation with the materials already collected by the Faro networks, and those to be collected (C.2);
B.2. elaboration of thematic documentaries and related trailers based on the interviews, to insert them into the software.
C. platform implementation: consolidation and dissemination of the platform in the crater:
C.1. expansion of the Faro Cratere Network to as many possible heritage communities in the 4 regions and 7 provinces affected by the earthquake, also through the involvement of interested parties in thematic focus groups.
C.2. interviews with witnesses of life and work in the villages affected by the earthquake, to be included in the above software.
The new skills that will be developed are listed in a previous point.
It is necessary to enhance the trades and professions that are the 'glue' of the community: insiders are involved in the Faro Cratere (FC) project who represent the many professions and operate in the vast sector of participatory cultural processes, often in an in- novative.
The added value of FC lies precisely in experimenting with new models of aggregation between professionals and institutional promoters of CP, to define together effective participatory strategies in safeguarding and enhancing common goods. Which necessarily involves trying the limits of the respective disciplines and inventing new ones.
