Touriboost project Local Workshop

On 14th March InEuropa organised the first stakeholders’ workshop in Modena by Ovestlab, based in Villaggio Artigiano.

Villaggio Artigiano is the site selected for the Touriboost Project where 5 objects were also identified to be valorised by the local attraction plan that will be developed in Italy:

Ovestlab

Casa Studio Cesare Leonardi

Ex Massicciata

Tric e Trac

Fonderia Ponzoni

Before the workshop the shared questionnaire related to IO1 was translated and adapted to the Italian context and a Google form was created as to collect answers and be facilitated in collecting the results. The questionnaires was delivered to 15 contact persons (stakeholders) anda re being collected.

The workshop lasted 2 hours.

The attendees were representatives of the following organisations:

- Municipality of Modena – tourist sector

- Ovestlab

- Amigdala association

- TricTrac

- Archivio Leonardi

- University of Modena and ReggioEmilia

- CivicWise Italy

- Loft350

- The local priest

- The representative of local inhabitants (also belonging to Amigdala association)

For a total of 11 participants.

Participants are professionals and inhabitants who have been working for many years in the area valorization and in creating activities to enhance local citizens' and stakeholders' participation

They have been working to collect the immaterial heritage and the stories of the people that are active part in the development and history of the area: for this purpose, they developed a project funded by the Emilia-Romagna region, about the memories from the XX century. They carried out and recorded some interviews with the people living in the local area, about the craftsman work and also about the social issues that were relevant for the local development.

All these interviews were collected and made public on Ovestlab website and on archive.org that is a public source about the public stories linked to the Villaggio Artigiano (http://ovestlab.it/afor/).

For promoting the valorisation of the area, among the many initiatives, this year there is also a public call for artists (called Imagornirmia) for developing artistic project in the area; moreover, a magazine called Fionda is published by an editorial board that is always open to the participation of local artists, writers, craftsmen, inhabitants and local people that are meeting for telling stories linked to the Villaggio Artigiano.

They had a project granted by the Culturability call aimed at setting up an independent school based on artisanal practice intended as a method to understand reality and transform it, keeping together project and realization, starting from the principles of the architect Cesare Leonardi that had an important role for the architecture in Modena. The school will start in October 2019 and will be addressed especially to youngsters under 30.

InEuropa presented the Touriboost Project showing the printed leaflets created.

A round of presentation of participants was also done.

Then InEuropa opened mentimeter asking 3 words decribing VIllaggio Artigiano and this is the result of the question:

The participants were very active and engaged in the conversation, expressing their thoughts and reflections on the potentialities of Villaggio Artigiano which is a productive area which is identified as a cultural site, full of immaterial resources and heritage that need to be valorised and promoted also through a touristic approach.

Then LSP was taken and a question was placed:

“please build a model of the distinctive identity that Villaggio Artigiano has in your opinion”

This question opened the creativity of participants that created, presented and commented the models. Highlighting the identity as a productive place, as a community, as a place that could have innovation potentialities, that can transform itself and above all can Show and share its “stories” that can attract any person, tourists as well, to make them live a full experience, jump in the past history /stories of the place and go forward towards the future stories and potentialities

Local values, local knowledge and skills, local memories, local crafts tradition, local immaterial heritage, local community, local productive resources are the key elements that connected and well integrated can become a touristic resource for attract visitors and enhance the area. The presence of the local authority (Modena city) was relevant and we hope there will be the chance to involve local institutions and decision makers in next workshops, too.

During the presentations of the model InEuropa took notes on the key words that were used:.

The poster on identity will be kept in Ovestlab and will be used for next Touriboost workshops.

The participants were very talktative and everything was filmed and shotted.

Indeed, InEuropa intended to place other two key questions to use LSP, but there was no time to continue. We will keep them for next time:

- Build your experience on Villaggio Artigiano

- Build your future image of Villaggio Artigiano