E10 - Result Sharing with Policymakers - Venice (Italy)

Impact

The community that recognizes itself with the cultural heritage of the Arsenale is at various levels, the first being that of the stakeholders, who have direct responsibility for parts of the Arsenal, assets as well as accesses.
The second is the community of citizens, associations, and lagoon institutions who recognize its immense cultural value and feel it as their own, re-proposing the ancient identification between the Arsenale and the myth of Venice.

The third is the network of citizens and international institutions who are passionate about Venice and who therefore, similarly with the locals, recognize the value of the Arsenale. Both of the latter would like to experience the arsenal in a complete and coherent manner, without the partial and sporadic perception offered by the events organized by the stakeholders.

There is a fourth reference community, silent and innumerable, which is the shapeless mass of tourists who come to the city and use it too quickly and trivially. The only factor in terms of urban transformability capable of interacting with this “segregation” is the Arsenale: in terms of size and potential.

It is not up to us to interact at this institutional scale, our task is to build bridges between these communities so that they can find sustainable solutions. Arsenalia is a means of sharing, to give space and time to cooperation between the communities at stake.

Sustainability

The prospect of future development, of implementing methods and contents that we have developed, is inherent in the process. In fact, we have proposed and shared prototypes of cultural products, which if on the one hand are finished products, due to the financial and temporal limits of the I_Improve Project; on the other hand they have gained interest in the actors. An inertia that will allow each of them to appropriate it.

Because, even by transforming it, with our help and stimulus, they can make it an effective tool for answering the questions that the communities described above ask. Their expressed intentions give hope that, for example, the Biennale will use the urban game as an educational tool, during some of its temporary exhibitions; the Navy finds the consent of the Interforce Communication Office for the production and distribution of the board game; and that all together find the resources to produce the digital game as a Virtual Museum of the Arsenale, which would easily enrich everyone's visit, providing an experience capable of filling the current vestiges of the Arsenal's productive past, with their historical and social meaning.

Findings

Participation in this European Project involved a constant learning process, from international partners, especially those experts in urban games; by the actors of the Arsenale, in the ways they communicate his heritage; by the many local, regional and national players who reinvent the cultural role of games; more generally they reinvent the way in which communities deal with their cultural heritage, especially in application of the Faro Convention.

The lesson learned is that, first, it is necessary to be able to identify the theme of the cultural project and its internal and external implications; second it is necessary to have the modesty to accept that many other subjects have both, title and added value, in the enhancement process, then it is necessary always resisting the temptation to educate the others, and not learn from them; third we have learned that patience, of which we are rich, is never enough in these complex processes, especially in the suspended time of the pandemic; fourth that by playing you learn, because the game is not only a tool but also an end: if playing seriously like children you can put around the table (otherwise recruiting) travel companions. Finally, we confirm what we had learned as young people, that the end does not justify the means, but on the contrary this wandering game reveals cultural objectives that are also different from those we had set ourselves at the beginning, but often more interesting, and above all and finally ... common goods.

Venice, italy

E activity in the Venice Arsenale

Arsenalia Argonaute Urban game in the old Arsenale of Venice.