Public Engagement 2023-25

On October 24th, the Geography Museum in Padua hosted a compelling book presentation titled ‘La città autistica’ (The Autistic City). The event, held from 16:30 to 18:00, featured author Alberto Vanolo from the University of Turin, with an introduction by Giada Peterle from our MoHu Centre. Elena Santi, the representative for Accessibility and Inclusion projects at CAM (University Center for Museums of the University of Padua), was also present at the event.

This presentation was part of the NaMUC – Narrative Mobilities of Urban Cultures seminar series, organised within the framework of the WALC – Walking Landscapes of Urban Cultures project. The Paduan unit of the WALC project (PRIN PNRR 2022, funded by the European Union’s NextGeneration EU initiative) is hosted at MoHu.

The event offered attendees a unique opportunity to explore the concept of ‘autistic cities’ and its implications for urban studies and planning. Vanolo’s work likely delves into how urban environments interact with and impact individuals on the autism spectrum, as well as how cities themselves might exhibit ‘autistic-like’ characteristics in their design and function.

This free-entry event not only showcased interdisciplinary research at the intersection of geography, urban studies, and disability studies but also highlighted the University of Padua’s commitment to fostering academic discussions on inclusive urban spaces.”

On 6 November 2025, the Museum of Geography in collaboration with our MoHu Centre hosted Paesaggi in Flusso, the public presentation of the photographic works developed within the Laboratorio Kalagrafico di Fotografia, coordinated by photographer and visual researcher Opher Thomson and featuring our Landscape Studies students.
The afternoon showcased a range of visual explorations through which students captured landscapes in motion – shifting forms, changing atmospheres and the subtle rhythms that shape places over time. Their work reflected diverse methods and sensibilities, demonstrating how photography can reveal the fluid and dynamic nature of contemporary landscapes.
At 4:30 PM, the presentation opened into a conversation with Giuseppe Tomasella (University of Padova) and Dr. Pere Sala i Marti, Director of the Landscape Observatory of Catalonia, an established and valued foreign stakeholder of the Landscape Studies programme. Dr. Sala offered insights that bridged research, policy and international landscape governance, enriching the dialogue with his longstanding experience.
Together with the students, the speakers discussed the role of photographic practice in understanding and communicating landscape transformations, as well as the opportunities that arise when artistic, academic and professional perspectives meet.
Paesaggi in Flusso not only highlighted the students’ creative engagement but also demonstrated how both new and long-term partners contribute to broadening the MoHu’s research horizons and strengthening learning opportunities within the Landscape Studies programme.

On November 26th, 2025, our Department hosted a compelling event titled “Moving with, and filming, female shepherds in Italy” as part of the “Space, Place and Mobility” course unit held by Chiara Rabbiosi within the Mobility Studies MA.

The highlight of the seminar was the screening of the film “In questo mondo” (In This World) by Anna Kauber, released in 2018. Kauber, the film’s director, presented her work which focuses on the lives and experiences of female shepherds in Italy. The film, shown with English subtitles, offered attendees a unique glimpse into a rarely explored aspect of rural Italian life.

The seminar provided valuable insights into themes of gender, rural livelihoods, and documentary filmmaking. It aligned well with the course’s focus on space and mobility, illustrating how these concepts intersect with traditional practices and gender roles in contemporary Italy.

The event, open to the public with prior registration, drew a diverse audience of students, academics, and external members interested in geography, gender studies, and Italian rural and food cultures. It successfully combined academic discourse with visual storytelling, making it an engaging and educational experience for all attendees.

This seminar was part of a broader European Union-funded initiative, PNRR – M4C2

PRIN PNRR 2022 – NextGenerationEU P20223SFMN – Postdevelopment geographies of Local Food Systems CUP: C53D23008730001.

On September 24th, at the Uferstudios in Berlin, our MoHu director Prof. Tania Rossetto gave a public lecture titled “Cartographic feelings of vulnerable geobodies: mobilising maps and mappings in post-Covid life”.

The event, open to the public, was hosted within a summer school entitled “Viral Atmosphere. Maneuvering the Affective Geographies of Pandemic and Health”, organized by Sung Joon Park (BNITM, Hamburg), Hansjörg Dilger (Free University, Berlin), Julia Hornberger (Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg), Bo Kyeong Seo (Yonsei University, Seoul), Nene Morisho (Pole Institute, Goma), and Jacqueline Häußler (BNITM, Hamburg).

Representing MoHu, our director explored the many ways in which the cartographic dimension was mobilized during the pandemic and how some behaviors with cartographic implications have migrated into the post-pandemic era, taking on new manifestations. The approach of humanistic mobilities, in this case linked to the cartographic theme, was useful in reflecting together with the audience on the shared legacy of the pandemic.

On September 12th, the screening of 3 selected documentaries for “Camera con Paesaggio” was held, a section of the Euganea Film Festival dedicated to the Landscape Videomaking laboratory, supported by our MobiLab, active at the Landscape Studies Degree Course.

Thanks to the work of professors Mauro Varotto, Marco Toffanin and Michele Trentini, the event highlighted the work of 3 short films:

Creating and recreating the homeland (8′) by Wang Yimei, Skibeach (13′) by Marco Toffanin and Michele Trentini, Via Melograno (7′) by Francesco Casari.

Euganea Film Festival has become a very consolidated stakeholder for the Landscape Studies Degree Course.

We see great potential in this collaboration because it involves our MoHu in its 3 missions: teaching, research and third mission.

From the teaching perspective, thanks to the Camera con Paesaggio section, the festival allows us to enhance the visibility of our students’ work from the degree course in Landscape Sciences. Students participate in the Landscape Videomaking Laboratory, also thanks to the equipment and software developed by our Laboratories. The best products have the opportunity to be presented at the festival.

But Euganea Film Festival also obviously stimulates our third mission, because it allows us to go beyond academic walls and get in touch with the territory, particularly addressing environmental sustainability issues, which is crucial both for the message that the Festival wants to convey to citizens and for the disciplines we study and teach at DiSSGeA.

This partnership with the Festival means a lot to us not only in terms of teaching and third mission, but also in the field of research. With this collaboration we nurture interest in film, in audiovisuals, as a method for scientific research in human and social sciences, a method that allows us to use alternative languages to interrogate the landscape, mobility, the environment, to explore its complexity and transformations, to find “new ways of looking”, which are always also “new ways of saying” materiality and the meaning of geographical space.

We are very grateful to all the personnel involved, to the laboratory professors, to our laboratory technicians, and above all to the students who put themselves out there every year.

On June 18th, 2025, our Department held a special “Paesaggio at Work” (Landscape at Work) event for the Master’s program in Landscape Studies. The day began with an orientation session for students covering topics like choosing stages and internships.

The highlight was a panel discussion on career opportunities after graduating with a Landscape Sciences degree. Alumni speakers included environmental consultants, researchers, creative professionals and project managers, and tour guides who highlighted how their landscape studies training provided valuable skills for their professions.

Representatives from the Veneto Regional Planning Office and private engineering firm NET  also weighed in on the demand for landscape experts in their fields. The event wrapped up with a networking aperitivo for students, faculty, and the attending professionals.

Overall, the “Paesaggio at Work” event gave incoming Landscape Sciences students an inside look at their program of study as well as the diverse career paths available to landscape graduates.

On May 23rd, we celebrated the 15th anniversary of our Local Development master’s programme with a special event titled “Happy Birthday Local Development!”.

The event was held in the hall of CUAMM (Doctors with Africa) in Padua, one of the most MA’s longest-standing stakeholders. Many guests attended to celebrate the programme’s achievements and evolution over the past 15 years, including Giovanni Putoto from CUAMM and Evelina Martelli from Comunità di Sant’Egidio.

The speakers underscored the importance of training professionals prepared to tackle the challenges of local development in an increasingly interconnected world.

Numerous alumni and partners of the programme attended to celebrate this milestone, reflecting on future years of commitment to local development with an awareness of the multifarious nuances and criticalities of the field.

It was also an occasion to thank all the past presidents of the Local Development programme (Professors Pierpaolo Faggi, Marina Bertoncin, Anna Giraldo), the current president Prof. Chiara Rabbiosi, as well as the faculty members (including Maria Castiglioni, Silvia Elena Piovan, Daria Quatrida, Irene Barbiera, Giorgio Osti, Alessio Surian among others) and the administrative staff (Edgar Serrano, Coralba Cappellato, Adriana Martin Garcia, Raffaella Masè, Eirini Koumparaki, Oscar Russo), who over the years have put endless energy, passion and expertise into carrying out this programme!

On Saturday, May 17, 2025, our MoHu director Tania Rossetto participated as a jury member in the 2025 Association for European Transport Hackathon, which was held at the Padua office of NET Engineering company, one of our intersectoral partners. The Hackathon, dedicated to the theme “Sustainable tourism challenges and strategies in Italy”, engaged MA and PhD students, including Billy Adi Pamungkas from our Local Development MA and Francesco Zuccolo, from our PhD program in Historical, Geographical, and Anthropological Studies, in two exciting days of creative discussion and exchange with experts on the topics of transportation, infrastructure, and alternative mobilities for tourists. Being part of the jury was a valuable opportunity to expand our center’s networking activity in the extra-academic field with leading actors of mobility transformations in Italy.

One of our major collaborations with the Centre for the GeoHumanities at Royal Holloway University of London, namely the “Variations on mobility” Creative Commission, has produced creative outputs that are still on a journey and haven’t finished saying what they have to say.

The graphic novel, Memories. Notes and Maps of a Journey to the West (2023), co-authored by Ciaj Rocchi, Matteo Demonte (illustrators, video-makers, and comic artists) and Daniele Brigadoi Cologna (sinologist and sociologist of migrations), which originated from this collaboration and was supported by MoHu (and in particular by Giada Peterle and Tania Rossetto), was presented at the Museo delle Culture (MUDEC) in Milan on May 8, 2025, as part of the TRAVELOGUE: Storie di viaggi, migrazioni e diaspore series. 

Memories is an intense work that reinserts the history of Chinese migration to Italy within the broader migratory flow towards Europe in the 1920s. Through direct testimonies and an accurate reconstruction of events, the book narrates the journeys, challenges, and visions of the protagonists of this migration, offering a new historical and human perspective.

This event demonstrates how art-research collaborations are able to bring mobility research into contact with diverse audiences, continuing MoHu’s public engagement mission.

On April 11th, 2025, the University of Padova’s Master’s program in Landscape Studies held a seminar and public debate titled “Paesaggio e partecipazione” (Landscape and Participation). The event aimed to mobilize perspectives on active citizenship in relation to landscape issues.

The event was chaired by Benedetta Castiglioni, Coordinator of the Landcape Studies MA, and Dissgea Director Andrea Caracausi welcomed all the participants.

The keynote speakers were Clemente Pio Santacroce, who discussed whether new policies or regulations are needed for landscape participation, and Claudia Cassatella, who presented a strategic approach to landscape project design. Francesca Benciolini, Councilor for Neighborhoods in Padova (an important stakeholder of the MA in Landscaoe Studies), spoke about everyday landscapes in a polycentric city model.

A highlight was the presentation of outcomes from the “Community Maps” laboratory course, in which 11 students, guided by the Laboratory leader Nadia Carestiato, shared their perceptions and reflections on the relationship between Padova’s landscapes and places through multimedia maps. Students presented their learning experience and final output, namely the map “Sguardi mobili su Padova. 11 punti di vista sulla città” (Mobile gazes on Padua: 11 points of view on the city).

The event culminated in a moderated discussion inviting dialogue on engaging the public’s diverse perspectives in shaping landscapes. Michelangelo Savino guided this conversation.

The seminar underscored the University of Padova’s leadership in advancing landscape studies that are rooted in participatory processes and citizen empowerment.