Towards Euphemia City
“This is exactly what happens to a foreigner. There isn’t a doubt that he takes a talent which is a signi cant part of our identity. It is important not to forget it: we can de ne our identity only in relation with the other, and the other is really the foreigner. However the foreigner is accompa- nied by a disturbing charge of threat.”
Umberto Curi, Foreign
Introduction (di Agostino Zanotti)
The sense
From the 3rd to the 6th of February 2012, the second edition of BUDD CAMP took place. It was characterized by an important work of observation and interaction be- tween students, local actors and different living spaces.
The four groups worked on two ats managed by the ADL association located in two districts of the city of Brescia, where territory social workers operate. In those ats, two groups of refugees live, one composed by men and the other by women with their children.
As last year, Italo Calvino’s “Euphemia City” has been the referential text to elaborate ideas and to make pro- posals. People from different countries, who had hetero- geneous and complex individual perspectives, met and faced with great simplicity and sincerity. Not only were the house doors opened, but there was also an inter- action of profound individual experiences. During these days, bonds of reciprocity were born, and the admission into the home private space —the habitation— has been accompanied by a narrative of different experiences and stories.
The particularity of these two ats is what they represent for the bene ciaries who live there, the refugees. They represent places of a studied temporary welcome and a site where they can take care of themselves. Each ben- e ciary must share with his tenant not only the physical space, but also the commitment towards the building of a private future perspective based on the cultures’ inter- action, both internal and external to the house.
These are places of a permeable living, reassuring and protective. Places where people who were expelled from other far localities, live their lives. These people are on the run from poverty and violence which have taken a toll on their bodies. Places full of signs and meanings which start from the bed, the kitchen and the yard into the square. Migratory and personal trajectories which intersect and cross the towns close to us. And also, they draw the ter- ritorial policies disturbing our daily life.
The survey on the two different places of the social com- mitment, which are located in two district of our town: “Lamarmora” and “Centro storico nord”, has been also important. In both situations, personal moments between the students, residents and local activists came true. Dur- ing these occasions, the refugees’ presence represented a cultural and emotional element of great signi cance.
In this workshop, the process has been directed to en- hance the usable aspect of the different socialization en- vironments paying attention to the plurality of operating actors: associations, citizens, users of services. Spaces which are multipurpose, versatile and, at the same time, recognizable as occasions of meeting and cultural pro- motion. Moreover, they are sensible to the urban context where they are located and they are throbbing with pur- poses of comparison towards other cultures.
When I think to the experience of this year, I consider the social inclusion and its “menace” the aspect tackled con- nected to the theme of a shareable living. In the sets’ the- ory, the inclusion is a relation among the elements of two sets, therefore, the relation’s elements belong to the both sets; in this sense the set’s elements are always identical even if they are connected. It doesn’t concern only an inclusion, to take inside, but also a contribution, as Italo Calvino’s book evokes, to the building of a new alphabet or language of the relations; this, it is possible trough the meeting with the foreigner and the perturbation which is originated from it. The care of the social connection, that we create with the other, breaks up enclosure of our daily life and it brings again the freedom desire which unites us.