Material Culture and Risorgimento: Activism, Emotions, Mobility PRIN 2022 Project
Material Culture and Risorgimento: Activism, Emotions, MobilityPRIN 2022 Project (2024-)
Research Unit based at the University of Padua
The importance of things, the vitality and mobility of objects, and their ability to offer different viewpoints on life in the past are all themes that have emerged from the many recent historical studies on material culture. This project aims to link materiality to political history, taking 19th-century Italy and its transnational networks as our field of inquiry. The focus of our analysis will be the complex and changeable lives of several objects that took on political significance in various ways and on diverse occasions, thereby contributing to the construction of political and national identities. In 19th-century Europe not only personal accessories, everyday, decorative objects and artworks, but also natural specimens played a significant role in new forms of political mobilization and dissent and in the articulation of political discourse in new repertoires and narrative forms. Whereas studies on the social life of objects and their contribution to the construction of social and gender identities have already found numerous and articulated developments, much less has been done on the materiality of the political experience and its specificities. Our research project intends to fill this gap by exploring the relationship between politics and the world of objects in the belief that this will shed light on new aspects of individual and collective political experience, at a time, in the 19th century, when the modern political sphere was being built.
The project will reconstruct and give meaning to the political lives of many objects, focusing on two different perspectives (and their ongoing relationships):
– Objects in action, variously linked to activism, political dissent, and mobility during the Risorgimento.
– Objects and the politicization of nature, particularly botanical objects created and collected by intellectuals and /or patriots.
Far from adopting a static point of view, our research will highlight mobility, re-use, cultural translations, and the transnational circulation of political objects in their different dimensions. These things embodied new practices and crisscrossed private and public spaces, political upheavals, and commercial trade routes.
Thus, this project will, on the one hand, bring out novel aspects in Italian 19th-century political practices and nationalization channels, and, on the other, make new and innovative educational and dissemination tools available to a wider public. Bringing together the work of scholars who in three Italian universities have been working on political objects for some time, the project intends to build an innovative collective workshop on the material history of politics, reflect on the methodological aspects of approaching politics through objects and finally develop an intense dissemination and public history project.
The project features two other units, one coordinated by Arianna Arisi Rota at the University of Pavia, and one coordinated by Roberto Balzani at the University of Bologna.
The objective of the Padua unit is to analyze how the staging of the nation, especially during the revolutionary episodes of the Risorgimento, also took the form of the use of a significant armoury of objects which frequently belonged to the dimension of everyday life but were re-semanticized in political and patriotic terms.
Principal investigator:
Carlotta Sorba
Members:
Enrico Francia
Michele Magri
Non è stato trovato nulla.
Plant Humanities & Botanical Collections | Conference with RHUL Centre for the GeoHumanities
Plant Humanities & Botanical Collections | Conference with RHUL Centre for the GeoHumanities
The Plant Humanities & Botanical Collections international conference aims to explore the potential of interdisciplinary research concerning the world of plants and their relationship with humankind, using historical collections housed in museums and botanical gardens as a starting point.
A dialogue between the ongoing research of the History of Science group at the Padua Botanical Museum and the Plant Humanities research at the Royal Holloway Centre for the GeoHumanities, featuring contributions from international renowned experts.
The event is organised in collaboration with the University of Padua Botanical Garden, the MoHu Centre, the University Museum Centre and the Royal Holloway Centre for the GeoHumanities.
Participation is free, registration is required.
Forum del Paesaggio: Progetti in movimento - 14 March 2024
Forum del Paesaggio: Progetti in movimento - 14 March 2024
Forum del Paesaggio. Progetti in movimento was organised by MoHu, DiSSGeA and the Museum of Geography, in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Culture of Italy and the support of the City of Padua, with the aim of encouraging reflection and idea exchange among institutions, the university research and all the stakeholders operating, in various capacities, within landscape.
The event stemmed from the Department’s experience, on behalf of the Ministry of Culture, as Technical Secretariat in the latest edition (2022-23) of the Landscape Prize under the supervision of Benedetta Castiglioni, who is also Coordinator of the Master’s degree programme in Landscape Studies at the University of Padua.
On the occasion of National Landscape Day, the representatives of the 73 projects nominated for the latest edition of the Prize, along with those from past editions, and other professionals operating ‘in/with/for’ the landscape across the Italian territory, in addition to a large group of students, gathered in Padua for a unique occasion to meet and discuss relevant topics and strategies related to education, social well-being, the protection of natural and cultural heritage, and the regeneration and enhancement of territories.
The morning session, hosted by Padua Botanical Garden, started with greetings from Monica Salvadori, Vice Rector in charge of Artistic, Historical, and Cultural Heritage, Andrea Caracausi, Head of the Department of Historical and Geographic Sciences and the Ancient World (DiSSGeA), Isabella Fera from the Directorate of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape (MiC) on behalf of the Director General Luigi La Rocca, Francesca Benciolini, Delegate for housing policies and residential construction at the Municipality of Padua, Salvina Sist, Director of the Territorial Planning Directorate of the Veneto Region, and Stefan Marchioro from the Tourism Directorate of the Veneto Region.
Benedetta Castiglioni introduced the speeches given by Sabrina Meneghello (University of Padua), Mauro Pascolini (University of Udine), Fulvio Adobati and Riccardo Rao (University of Bergamo), followed by the roundtable chaired by Margherita Cisani (University of Padua). The roundtable discussion involved Stefano Olivari and Matteo Baldo (Orti Generali srl Impresa sociale, winning project of the Landscape prize 2022-23 edition), Maria Grazia Bellisario (Associazione Economia della Cultura), Marco Bussone (Uncem), Paolo Castelnovi (Fondazione Landscapefor), Mario Andrea Francavilla (AIGAE), Costanza Pratesi (FAI).
The working groups, held in the afternoon at the Museum of Geography, allowed for further reflection on institutional recognitions as tools to support project development, the meeting/clash between formal aspects and practical needs, and the impact of various activities on the landscape in both material and immaterial terms, broadening the perspective towards the future.
The students of the MA in Landscape Studies were involved as facilitators of the working groups, thus experiencing in first person what public engagement means.
It was also a great opportunity to collaborate with a number of stakeholders of our Master’s degree programme.
The event was supported by the City of Padua; Veneto – The land of Venice, the Regional Landscape Observatory, and the Alumni Unipd association also joined the initiative.
PUBLIC EVENT - La città camminata - 20 March 2024
PUBLIC EVENT - La città camminata - 20 March 2024
The open seminar LA CITTÀ CAMMINATA: PRATICHE DI ATTIVISMO URBANO was organised by MoHu and the Museum of Geography to involve the students of our MA in Landscape Studies as well as the general public interested in practices of care for the city. The public seminar was co-organised with the PRIN PNRR project WALC – Walking Landscapes of Urban Cultures as part of the NaMUC – Narrative Mobilities of Urban Cultures seminar series.
The event was held to present Beatrice Barzaghi and Maria Fiano’s “Guida alla Venezia ribelle” (Voland, 2015). During the meeting, the authors shared thought-provoking reflections and narratives, drawing on Venice’s memories of rebellion and introducing the contemporary awareness-raising activities of OCIO – the civic observatory for housing issues and residentiality.
In their words, walking the city emerges as a practice of care that local activists perform to subvert the stereotypes portraying Venice only as a tourist destination while consolidating the reciprocal connections between resident communities and their urban space.
We enjoyed having Beatrice Barzaghi and Maria Fiano and deeply appreciated the ways in which they walked us through memories of rebellion to inspire our contemporary claim for an aware right to the city.
Space, Place and Mobility Student Video Contest 2024
Space, Place and Mobility Student Video Contest 2024
The 2023 edition of the videolab focussed on participatory video-making, asking our students from the MA in Mobility Studies and MA in Local Development to work in groups to provide narrative specifically focussing mobility justice. It was so amazing to watch their creative, sensitive, and empowering engagements with multiple notions of mobilities (including transport, gendered, migratory, food mobilities and many others).
This year, the Space, Place, and Mobility Student Video Contest awarded student-produced short films in two categories. THE RIDE received the ‘mobility focus’ award, while LOST IN COMMUNICATION and THREE STORIES ABOUT (NOT) MOVING AROUND received the ‘filmic quality’ award each.
This year’s ten short films and a few from prior years have been shown at the Donne.Teatro.Diritti Festival, which took place at Pacta Teatre in Milan from March 1 to April 1, 2024.
You may also check the 2023 short films out here
