(1) Carlo Settimio Battisti & (2) Federico Sacco
(1) Artistic Director, Curator and Independent Researcher at TWM Factory; Adjunct Professor of Communication for Cultural Heritage, MCBeC, Sapienza University of Rome (2) Author and Editorial Curator
How can the festival apparatus be associated with the concept of urban and cultural regeneration? The festival can exist within projects promoted and curated by real territorial communities (such as associations, cooperatives, informal collectives, and non-profit organizations) that create a program participated in by various entities. We can define this apparatus as a transversal festival: a cultural offering that reflects the representational needs of places. When these entities create a virtuous circuit, intertwining in some cases with Public Administration or receiving funding from private entities, they do not lose their cultural value but settle in a segment of the city determined by its geographic location and its inhabitants.
In the Latin expression festivalis as a series of mostly periodic events and performances, lies the idea of a review of fèsta intended for the celebration of solemn days. Just as there are places destined for the exaltation of sacredness in the territory, not only in a religious sense but also in an artistic and cultural sense, the festival, over time, takes the form of an interruption of daily life. If centers like museums, theaters, and libraries exist as “permanent institutions” in the city, cultural bubbles where the sensation of inhabiting urban space is interrupted, the festival represents the suspension of the everyday moment. Configuring itself as an extraordinary event, it exploits an unparalleled resonance: the festival is here and now. It is a ritual, a sacred moment far from productivity and work success: the very concept theorized by Ettore Sottsass in the 1970s in Il Pianeta come Festival (Sottsass, 1972), imagining a free society in a utopian world made of architectures and spaces lent to the exercise of citizens, far from economic-capitalistic needs and social constructs. It is no coincidence that the first festivals were born in the context of youth protests: Woodstock (1969) created gatherings at the intersections of the sacred, political, and musical. What popular art, if not music, is capable of creating unity and revolt? Stages become cathedrals in the deserts of cities, and DJs are the ministers celebrating a cult that invigorates squares, streets, villages, and towns. In Italy, for example, Terraferma has regenerated Villa Arconati Park with an international music selection for eight years, and the Ortigia Sound System has reactivated Syracuse for nine years with a multidisciplinary program involving the creative and cultural industries. Specifically, in Rome, the latest editions of Creature by Open City Roma and the most recent edition of Short Theatre focus on sound as the curatorial line's focal point: an intangible art that stimulates the development of connections, vibrations that touch eardrums and bodies. Thus, in the relationship between the design (site-responsive or site-specific) of the show intended as a happening (Casabella, 1969) and the construction of structures such as stages or welcoming camps, lies the archetype that unites the ephemeral and the architectural.
In the current context, the transversal festival uses experimental languages and methodologies: time can take on a non-linear value, the concept of space can be articulated between the physical and digital, and the weaving of relationships is not limited to institutions but reaches directly to citizens.
This apparatus exploits a dual temporality: it is ephemeral compared to the permanence of the rest of the urban cultural offering but cyclical within a broader programming scope. It breaks down the barriers of spatiality: configuring itself as a device that dissolves the indoor/outdoor dichotomy, it is used by cultural institutions to invade other spaces, relating to the elements of the city. The widespread event apparatus is not, in fact, peculiar to entities that have a physical headquarters but also to those that lack one, generating a space of possibility (Franceschinelli, 2022) in the city. Temporality is thus configured as a fundamental element of festival programming, understood as a broad series of cultural designs involving various practices; indeed, even the review is a festival: although it is not cyclical, it is configured as an action by bodies that spread culture throughout the territory. We could speak of the atemporality of the event and diffused knowledge: "knowledge and the various forms culture can take manifest in different places and times: the characteristics of each place, from the layout followed to the materials used, can shape the activities that take place, giving them particular goals and functions. The city, with its architectures, thus becomes the ideal stage for the diffusion and sharing of knowledge”.
The widespread festival consists of points: a network of entities that already enliven the territory through their offerings, involving specific neighborhoods and communities: these are museums, theaters, libraries, independent bookstores, cultural centers, associations, or the more modern forms of artist-run spaces. The festival as a model of widespread culture originates from a European post-war ancestor from Edinburgh (Agusto, 2008), which emerged in response to a strong need for requalification and proliferates today in Italy through thousands of initiatives still unmapped across the territory. In this circumstance, the cultural offering linked to the city-space diversifies quantitatively, expanding across the urban territory and connecting parts of the city: it is not confined to the historic center alone, the municipality usually designated to host programming, but facilitates interurban connections, interacting with border areas such as suburbs, towns, and provinces. Qualitatively, the widespread event takes on the connotation of a cultural schedule, involving different places and practices. It thus qualifies as a mirror of the third phase of the New European Bauhaus creative initiative: dissemination in the ideal of sharing knowledge and culture. In this sense, there is no insurmountable geographic limit: the festival apparatus does not adhere to narrow municipal territorialities; its aggregative nature instead responds to terms of economic and social accessibility and inclusivity.
The propagation of events throughout the territory of the Consolidated City enlivens abandoned places, managing to permeate those fragments of the city where institutions, without the moderation and involvement of communities, often fail to reach. Culture becomes a transformative engine of the territory and plays an important role in redefining and mapping places that change in tandem with cultural representations and the public that participates. The festival thus indirectly becomes part of a regenerative policy involving cultural and human capital, exploiting the transformations and configuration of the city: it is a means that facilitates the participation not only of the public but also of local administration. The festival and the city maintain a complex do ut des relationship: the event leverages the territorial configuration, utilizing its physical characteristics and allowing the territory to historicize the result in urban memory; and the city derives a regenerative, economic, social, and architectural benefit. Urban regeneration, however, is collateral to the festival, which, by configuring itself as a culture-led apparatus, does not alienate itself from the political and ideological dimension of the city.
A striking example of how widespread events can redefine urban spaces is the Fuorisalone in Milan, an international design showcase that, during Design Week, brings attention to areas beyond the city center. Spaces that are not traditionally recognized as cultural or organizational hubs often become temporary venues, showcasing their potential to host large-scale gatherings. While it is true that these locations may often return to underuse or neglect after the event, their temporary transformation leaves a lasting impression. They begin to enter the collective memory of the community, establishing a reputation for their organizational and creative potential.
This resonance gradually integrates these spaces into a network of possibilities, positioning them as candidates for future activities. Even events of smaller scale can start to gravitate toward such locations, drawn by their demonstrated capabilities. Over time, as these venues gain recognition, they evolve into more permanent fixtures within the urban and cultural landscape, often becoming hosts to regular programming or fixed activities. This slow progression highlights how large-scale events can serve as catalysts, not only for short-term engagement but also for fostering a deeper, ongoing relationship between the community and its underutilized spaces.
The challenge, however, lies in maintaining accessibility and usability for these spaces beyond the temporary momentum provided by major events like Fuorisalone. During the festival, the city enhances its transportation infrastructure, adding shuttle services, extending public transit hours, and increasing frequency, thereby making these areas easily accessible. Once the event ends, though, these improvements often vanish, leaving these locations disconnected and difficult to reach. Just as a continuous flow of blood is essential to sustain the health of an organ, these urban spaces require constant and reliable connections to thrive. Nevertheless, the impact of such events extends beyond the immediate festival period, planting the seeds for a broader cultural reintegration. Over time, they can inspire a more inclusive vision of urban life, transforming overlooked areas into vibrant parts of the city’s cultural and social fabric.
The festival we examine differs in part from events promoted and funded exclusively by Public Administration or large corporations but can encounter them through participation in public calls, receiving direct funding or sponsorships. In this co-design system with third-sector entities, transversal festivals thus integrate between institutional and independent cultural programming, taking advantage of economic support and the availability of public spaces (such as squares, gardens, museums, historic buildings, and archaeological assets), while having to adapt to the proposal of the call and its political-administrative direction. Nonetheless, a self-produced festival reality exists, finding economic support in fundraising initiatives, self-financing, volunteering, and patronage actions, maintaining a closer relationship with the needs of urban communities. In both cases, albeit differently, this apparatus intervenes in a recovery design that involves the historical context, respects cultural diversity, and stimulates collectivization in such a way that the city must constantly reinvent itself according to the changing needs related to environmental and temporal factors. The widespread event is for this reason democratic: "democracy and architecture, if organic, cannot be two separate things” (Wright, 2022). The democracy-city-culture triad conveys the idea of the commons in Toni Negri's (2012) intention, and the widespread event is political and common because it does not animate a private space but one of the community: it calls for the participation of plural identities, involving a collective body made of art and the public.
As an immaterial apparatus, the festival also creates virtual spaces; it lends itself to the digitalization of the cultural event with computerized artistic expressions related to physical and concrete places, determining the fruition of cultural space also through its media. Through the digital promotion of the review, interconnected places are mapped, creating a true area of access and interest for an expanding audience. The multi-diffusion and sharing of data such as photographs and videos by users, for example, through geolocation, generates a digital territory map, defining an area that goes beyond the administrative division of the city. The thus extended physiology of the widespread event incites collective participation, overcoming the neighborhood community and reaching another audience: inhabitants of the city and beyond a circumscribed space. It creates communities united by a common interest, trackable subjects.
The participatory event lends itself to the enhancement not only of heritage through the habitation of urban space and the exaltation of the surrounding architecture, using it as a means of artistic interaction, but also of the revaluation of intangible heritage and the diversity of cultural expressions. If tangible and environmental assets are preserved and enhanced through a consolidated practice, intangible assets, ephemeral by definition, undergo uncertain classification. They are "the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, know-how—as well as the instruments, objects, artifacts, and cultural spaces associated with them—that communities, groups, and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature, and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thereby promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity” (UNESCO, 2023). The festival is therefore part of a regenerative process that involves the tangible and intangible heritage of the city.
In the construction of a program that considers not only the enhancement of existing heritage but also the generation of new heritage, the participatory festival does not exclusively offer fixed content. Instead, it presents a rich "main" program, sometimes consisting of performances, shows, exhibitions, concerts, and what we conventionally recognize as the festival archetype, while also incorporating practices and ideologies aimed at producing intangible heritage. It includes talks, readings, workshops, book presentations, and experimental moments of meeting and discussion, settling into physical and temporal spaces beyond the main program, in human exchanges, in the moments of waiting between events. Knowledge and arts, which ideally disappear over time, can be traced through the production and archiving of physical or digital content. The festival becomes an archive of knowledge.
Reference List
Agusto, G. (2008, January). I festival tra impatto sul territorio e luogo di espressione per l’immaginario collettivo. Tafter Journal. Esperienze e strumenti per cultura e territorio, (2).
Franceschinelli, R. (Ed.). (2022). Spazi del possibile. I nuovi luoghi della cultura e le opportunità della rigenerazione. Franco Angeli Editore.
Hayes, L. (2017). From site-specific to site-responsive: Sound art performances as participatory milieu. Organised Sound, 22(1), 83–92.
Negri, T. (2012). Inventare il comune. Derive Approdi.
Orazi, M. (2023, November). La stagione dell’effimero. Sapere diffuso, Urbano, (7), 26. (Happening progettuale, Casabella, 339–340, 1969, pp. 98–99, cited in Orazi).
Sottsass, E. (1972). Il pianeta come festival. Editrice Casabella.
UNESCO. (2023). Il patrimonio culturale immateriale: settori, tematiche e interconnessioni. Retrieved from https://www.unesco.it/it/temi-in-evidenza/cultura/il-patrimonio-culturale-immateriale-settori-tematiche-e-interconnessioni/
Wright, F. L. (2022). Architettura organica. L’architettura della democrazia. Abscondita.
Comment 1
The nature of the widespread festival as a tool for urban and cultural regeneration, with its ability to connect physical and social spaces through cultural events, can in its own way represent an alternative urban approach. The description is comprehensive, but I would like to focus on an element I consider central.
It is interesting how, starting from an existing urban fabric, the theme of pathways can be reinterpreted through a cultural lens. The festival permeates city spaces, touching points and incorporating places that are not necessarily 'famous,' transforming them into a new narrative and embedding them in an urban history tied to the cultural event in question.
An example of this widespread pervasiveness is the Fuorisalone in Milan, a gigantic international event that, during design week, complements the Salone del Mobile. Over the years, the Off event has grown from a spontaneous event limited to a few blocks to a standalone manifestation, expanding even to metropolitan areas far from the center (including peripheral districts), transforming them into attractive hubs and centers of cultural interest.
However, the process of reclaiming these marginal spaces is rather slow and mainly limited to the period related to the event. This happens when the peripheral area is not effectively and consistently served by a comprehensive public transport network. During the event, the city strengthens bus and shuttle services, extending their operating hours and increasing frequency, but once Fuorisalone is over, these areas return to being semi-abandoned, as they are no longer easily (and safely) accessible. Just as an organ in our body needs to be nourished by a continuous, uninterrupted flow of blood to function well, so too must marginal urban spaces be guaranteed a constant circulation of safe connections, bringing lifeblood and ensuring their longevity.