OVERLAP - Events between Art and Science on Biodiversity and Migration
Overlap - Events between Art and Science on Biodiversity and Migration is a multi-year project of interdisciplinary research about humans and birds migration. Art and Science are the indissoluble lenses of reading a universal process which is the migration of living beings across tangible or impalpable boundaries.
Research tools are the multidisciplinary workshops on the island of Asinara while the performance, exhibition and scientific events are the channels for the dissemination.
Cross-border/international
Italy
Spain
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MAIN LOCATION:
ITALY - SARDINIA - ASINARA NATIONAL PARK
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): SENZA CONFINI DI PELLE Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: DARIO Last name of representative: LA STELLA Gender: Male Nationality: Italy Function: PRESIDENT Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: PIAZZA CASTELLO 11 Town: SASSARI Postal code: 07100 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 347 056 1735 E-mail:info@senzaconfinidipelle.com Website:http://www.senzaconfinidipelle.com
The multi-year project “OVERLAP - Events between Art and Science on Biodiversity and Migration”, conceived and coordinated by the association Senza Confini Di Pelle in collaboration with 22 international partners, investigates the overlap between the migratory routes of birds and those of men and specifically the routes that connect the Mediterranean Sea with Central Africa and Northern Europe.
From a first reading, one can see how the maps developed by the ISPRA (Higher Institute of Environmental Research) in use at the Wildlife Observatory of the Asinara National Park (Sardinia, Italy) depicting the routes of migratory birds between Africa and Europe almost completely coincide with the maps drawn up by Medu (Doctors for Human Rights) showing the routes of people moving from central Africa to Europe.
The project therefore intends to examine the overlapping of the maps described above in order to deepen the relationship between Migration and Biodiversity, i.e. how this relationship produces a reciprocal modification based on the concept of Residence.
The project aims to make visible the relationship between human behaviour and modification of the environment, highlighting how migration is a biological phenomenon that belongs to the planetary system.
The project aims to highlight the absolute value of biodiversity as the undisputed heritage of the planet, through holistic practices that put human beings, animals and plants on the same level.
The project is divided into two sections:
• Multidisciplinary research workshops
• Production and dissemination of results
The multidisciplinary workshops are the core of the project, where new perspectives and new methodologies are experienced to research and learn about the direct relation between behaviours and environment.
The results (outcome) are the tools to disseminate the themes and the research of the project.
BIODIVERSITY
MIGRATION
MULTIDISCIPLINARY
INCLUSION
SUSTAINABILITY
In line whit the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the Agenda 2030, the project aims to raise awareness about the human rights equality and the respect of nature.
Specifically the project addresses to the follow goals:
• 3.4 We teach how is important to respect our body to have an healthy body in synergy with natural environment, animals and other human beings.
• 4.7 The project promises an education model where Peace, respect of equal rights, respect of all diversities are the base of the ethical statute.
• 5.1/5.C All the activities of the project are open to all audience without distinction of gender, age, culture. The participation at the workshops stimulates empowerment reinforcing the sense of membership and inclusion.
• 8.9/8.B The project intends to promote a model of sustainable tourism in which walking and slow rhythms are some of basic practices. The project stimulates young people to enlarge their horizons to create new enterprise models in line with the Agenda 2030.
• 10.2 The main theme of Migration is a spectrum to investigate the sense of identity and at the same time to create conditions to generate inclusion in all the activities of the project.
• 12.8 We encourage people to follow the main objective of the Asinara Park related to the defence of the Biodiversity and in general to the respect of the nature.
• 13.1/13.3 Most of the activities are related to Climate Change and how we can fight the increase of pollution and co2.
• 14.5 The Asinara National Park is also a Marine Protected Reserve, in the Park, many activities are realized to attract interest of people to marine biodiversity.
• 15.5 One of the partner of the project is the Fauna Observatory of the Asinara National Park that protects and prevents the extinction of threatened species.
• 17.6/17.7 The project is realised with a partnership of 23 international subjects between Africa and Europe, with public and private institutions and companies.
The project has different tools to realise its objectives, the main are the workshops and the outcomes (results). All the work is led by an international multidisciplinary group of artists and scientists.
During the workshops and the outcomes (shows, exhibitions, conferences, publications) many people from different backgrounds are invited: asylum seekers, refugees, students, citizens of any age, sex and culture.
These heterogeneous groups have an horizontal governance during the workshops. Every subject can propose a practice and everyone participates to the proposed activity. At the same time all the proposed practices are experienced in direct contact with the natural environment. In this way every person experienced an unique discover of itself. Nothing is wrong in this approach, all the experiences are rich and useful for the research.
As time passes (the workshop is residential, the group lives together h24) the group becomes a whole entity, the bodies had experienced something of extraordinary, often in strong situations, under the sun, walking for many hours. During the pauses, the lunches, the cooking, people talk about their life and some little part of them become part of the group as a cultural biodiversity system.
In this context the participants feel a total inclusion, each diversity is a richness that improve all the system. Everybody is important for the group, every opinion is in the same level of the others.
This is a model for a equal community where everyone can express oneself in total protection, developing own talent without pressure.
The multidisciplinary is a key to shift own perspective and to view something of new of the same subject, it is a fundamental tool to enlarge and enrich the own culture.
The outcomes are curated by the individual skills of the different disciplines. It is important that quality of the aesthetics is high to transmit the results of the project to a large scale of audience.
The work group is open to new entries, every year the project receives new requests in order to create a fluid dynamic of skill exchange.
The work group is made up of about 12/16 members of various disciplines of art and science including: anthropology, ornithology, architecture, urban planning, geography, biology, ecology, photography, dance, literature, theatre, visual art, ...
The project is coordinate by the association Senza Confini Di Pelle, but all the work of research and outcomes is led by an horizontal governance between all the participant at the project.
As said previously the workshops are open to all, to any category of person without distinction of gender, culture, age, origin, religion, skills, profession.
The project is designed for an inclusive society in which the weakest groups, such as asylum seekers, the elderly, migrants and children can be the protagonists of shared experiences.
The basic idea is that each biography can be a potential tool to investigate to world, so there isn’t a supremacy between different ideas, but only a wide spectrum of the same thing.
Each person is a richness that contributes to enlarge cultural biodiversity and greater is the biodiversity, more stable is the system (as we learn by biology).
The project has achieved this goal of inclusion by creating a climate of comfort within the workplace in which each person is on the same level with the other, giving value to the single person.
There are two ways to engage directly the community and the citizens by the project:
- Multidisciplinary workshops (research)
- Outcomes (results of the research)
The first way is the participation to the workshops, where citizens of every age, culture, gender, religion, origin, profession and also migrants, asylum seekers, refugees are called directly to participate at the research and to the outcomes of the project.
The second way is the participation in the results as an audience. The results of the research (carried out by the multidisciplinary laboratories) are disseminated in different formats according to each discipline.
The target is to reach a wide spectrum of audience both artistic and scientific.
The main result formats are:
• theatre and dance shows
• site-specific dance performances
• videodance
• operas of visual arts
• visual and performative art exhibitions
• scientific conferences
• scientific meetings
• scientific papers
• publications
• video documentaries
• public presentations
With this two ways the community is involved directly in the activities of the project, but there is also a large range of international audience involved indirectly by social media:
- Direct involvement: Workshops / Outcomes
- Indirect involvement: Social Media / Video on line / Web site
This multiple involvement contributes to mix audience of different fields (art and science) and to connect local and global communities, creating new audience.
Overlap is an international project developed by 22 partners:
ITALY
1. Senza Confini Di Pelle (Sassari) Performing Arts
2. GUS (Macerata) Social Projects
3. Ente Parco Nazionale dell'Asinara (Porto Torres) Biodiversity
4. Centro Studi Fauna (Porto Torres) Ornithology
5. Deborah Ricciu - Espandere Orizzonti (Olbia) Human Rights
6. Parabatula (Sassari) Dance
7. S'ala (Sassari) Dance
8. Meridianozero (Sassari) Theatre
9. Cult (Alghero) Visual Arts
10. Tusitala (Cagliari) Photography
11. Università degli Studi di Cagliari Geography
12. Università degli Studi di Sassari Urban Plannnig
13. Kiwi (Rosarno) Community Art
14. Artistica Music & Show SCpa (Bra) Video Making
15. Stalkerteatro (Torino) Theater
16. MCF Belfioredanza (Torino) Dance
17. Medu - Medici per i diritti umani (Roma) Human Rights
INTERNATIONAL
18. Centre Chorégraphique National de Nantes (FR) Dance
19. Dance Theatre Comma8 (Vilnius - LT) Dance Theater
20. Det Stille Teateret (Oslo - NO) Dance Theater
21. Skisser I Bevegelse (Oslo - NO) Dance
22. Living Theater (NCY - USA) Theater
The project is curated and coordinated by Senza Confini Di Pelle in accord to the other 21 partners.
The three main partners are the Asinara National Park, the University of Cagliari and the University of Sassari, they are the minimal core of the workgroup.
The other partners are involved at different levels, some of them participate during all the process, others only in some parts (e.g. only for the workshop and not for the outcome), others only in virtual mode (e.g. spreading the information of the project by the web).
The project receives a financial support by the Sardinia Region (Italy), Fondazione di Sardegna and has the patronage of Municipality of Sassari and Porto Torres.
It is in collaboration with Sardinian private companies as Delcomar and public Sardinian museum as MACC, MUT, Casa Manno, FAI
Art and Science are the indissoluble lenses of reading of the project. There are no limits on disciplines.
Here below the disciplines used since 2019 (starting point of the project) until now:
• Anthropology
• Architecture
• Biology
• Dance
• Ecology
• Geography
• Human Rights
• Landscape
• Literature
• Music
• Ornithology
• Performing Art
• Photography
• Theater
• Urban plannnig
• Video Art
• Visual Art
Multidisciplinary is one of the main topic of the project, all the activities are realized under the multi-focal lens of art and science.
During the workshops the same theme (e.g. migration) is investigated with each different perspective of a single discipline. In this way each discipline is contaminated by the others. So for example a choreography can arise by a cartography.
This is what happened during a workshop in 2019. The starting point was a workshop of geography where the participants had to create an emotional map of their biography using the ground made of soil and some little objects as stones, woods, coloured woollen threads. At the end 15 emotional maps were created on the ground and an architect took memory of these maps drawing 15 sketches. These sketches became 15 operas as single pictures. After it was created a choreography using the pictures as indications for the movements. The choreography is a dance performance called Biotracing.
It is unexpected and amazing how can be enriching to contaminate disciplines, in particular way when they are so far from each other as art and science.
It is a great exercise to open the mind, not so easy to realize but it is certainly an exciting challenge.
The innovative character of the project is expressed by three topics:
• Multidisciplinary between art and science
As explained above the interaction between art and science is a great opportunity to open the mind and enrich own vision of the world.
The contamination between the two fields imposes a shift on personal ideas and paradigms.
It’s an extraordinary tool to teach and learn how the same subject can assume different aspects.
The same subject investigated by different point of view becomes a new subject with unexpected details.
• Body in nature as tool of the research
The body is the centre of the research as object and subject of investigation.
All the work is oriented to enter in direct contact whit the natural environment.
Each workshop, each lesson, each practice, each study is realized in natural environment.
So no rooms, no desk, no pc (just in few moments), no frontal lesson.
Usually during the workshop we walk or we stay in the ground in circle.
• Horizontal governance
The work is led with an horizontal governance, in which everyone is responsible for himself and for the whole group. All the decisions are taken under a democratic process. Usually the coordinator of the project proposes some indications that all group has to take in consideration.
At the same time everyone participates actively at all activities during the workshop included activities regarding the lodging (prepare the lunch and cleaning the rooms).
The project is structured to have the possibility to dislocate their products in term of workshops, knowledge, methodologies, processes, outcomes.
Fluidity and movement are two characteristics of the project, the macro objects of the research (Biodiversity and Migration) clearly indicate the direction not only as themes of the work but also as structure and organization.
In this way workshops and outcomes (project tools) are projected and realized to have the possibility to be replicated in other contexts and locations and to be enjoyed by other beneficiaries.
The multidisciplinary workshops are open to a wide range of participants, usually from different countries and continents, so many languages are spoken. English and French are the two languages used for translations.
The pedagogic aspect of the project, elaborated during four years of workshops, is been implemented by the creation of an original methodology that can be realized in different contexts and locations and can be joined by a large wide of participants.
The same international aspect is been implemented for the outcomes. All the outcomes (shows, art exhibitions, publications, conferences, web site, etc.) are translated in English to reach a wide range of audience.
The aim is to enlarge the net of the project and spread as more as possible the outcomes and the concepts of the project to connect in a virtuous way local and global practices.
Very briefly the Methodology and its approach can be summarized in these topics:
• Grounded Theory
• Multidisciplinary
• Body as tool of research
• Horizontal governance
The project develop an education based on an original methodology created during the workshops.
In this way the research approach is “field oriented” as grounded theory (GT).
The basics of this approach is to start from a theme of reference and after develop the theory during the practice research on field. So the development of the theory goes at the same level of the practice research.
Using this approach theory and practice influence each other creating new possibilities, new point of view, new opening, new questions.
The “Overlap Methodology” uses the body of the workshop participants as tool and object of the research and learning.
So the research becomes an immersive experience where all the body is involved. Mind, body and emotions are called to interact with the surrounding natural environment under the lens of the discipline chosen.
The most part of the activities are in open air in direct contact with natural environment, with plants, animals, rocks, sand, wind, water, sun, etc.
The suggestion is to have less medium as possible to interact with elements, the body is the medium between the perceptions and the reality.
Another peculiarity of the methodology is to work with an horizontal governance in which every member is at the same level of the others. So university professors, scientists, artists have to practice at all the proposed activities just as students, citizens, asylum seekers, etc.
The timeline sequence of an explicative practice of research is:
1. Choice of the theme (e.g. Trace)
2. Choice of the discipline lens (e.g. Geography)
3. Proposed Practice (e.g. Emotional Map)
4. Practice Research (e.g. Creation of own ecological map)
5. Discussion and theorizing (e.g. Biography as Migration)
6. Outcome (e.g. Scientific paper / Choreography)
The project faces to sustainable development for the planet and in particular it faces to climate change, biodiversity protection, ecological collapse, human rights equality, responsible economic production.
These topics are interconnected between them and in general the respect for nature and humans are the base for future societal, economical, and environmental challenges.
The project macro themes Biodiversity and Migration are relevant to achieve these goals.
The education to biodiversity protection means also to oppose to ecological collapse, widespread pollution, climate change, plastic production, CO2 emissions. It means to have a critical behaviour towards massive agricultural production, intensive breeding farm, exploitation of water and mineral resources.
In the same way the education on Migration it means also to protect the weakest groups (as migrants and refugees) and the weakest species (as some extinction animal species). It means also speaking about human rights, equality rights, peace.
The local solutions related to the goals above described are:
• Education on Biodiversity and Migration by multidisciplinary international workshops
• Use of Electrical vehicles
• Use of Renewable energies
• Use of local products at zero/km
• Reduction of the plastic packaging using recyclable materials
• Spread of the results of the project by Shows, Exhibitions, Publications, Conferences.
• Equal rights and horizontal governance in the work process
• Total inclusion of any kind of people in the activities
• Promotion of sustainable tourism models
Overlap is a multi-year project (2019 - 2024), here below the list of reached outputs until 2022:
2019-2022
• International Residential Multidisciplinary Workshop
• Dance Theater Performance
• Scientific Conference
• Art Exhibitions
• Publication
In total 4 workshops, 13 dance theater performances, 4 scientific conferences, 7 art exhibitions, 1 publication were realized, involving around 2000 direct beneficiaries and around 25000 indirect beneficiaries.
2023-2024
• Export Methodology
• New International Partners
• Strengthening Local Activities
It is planned to export the methodology of the workshops in new contexts in Italy and Spain and to create a virtuous net with new international partners.
At the same time the activities of the project will strengthen in Sardinia at the Asinara National Park.
A virtuous example of the inclusion is the direct experience of a participant at the workshop.
Siranding Mady Sissoko is arrived in Sardinia from Mali as asylum seeker in 2017, in 2019 he has participated to the workshop where he has knew the Professor Silvia Serreli of the University of Sassari. After the workshop, with the suggestion of the Professor Serreli, he has decided to enroll to the University. Now he is a student of the professor Serreli and part of the work group of the Ovelap project. He has wrote an article in the publication.
In line with the European competence framework on sustainability, the project is focused to provide all learners with opportunities to learn about the climate crisis and sustainability in formal education (for example, schools and higher education) and non-formal education (such as, extra-curricular activities, youth work).
And also the project actively involves students and staff, local authorities, youth organisations and the research and innovation community in learning for sustainability.
