The Home of Italian Identity - The Strength of Future
A Journey through the Exhibition “The Home of the Italian Identity”
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Journey through the Exhibition “The Home of the Italian Identity”
The Home of Italian Identity was not an exhibition but a sensory and emotional project designed to make young Italians aware and
proud of the many wonders of their country. We therefore chose to adopt a contemporary language, devoid of any filters or museum conventions; a language based on a range of different perspectives and straightforward concepts, presented in an amusing and enjoyable way.
In order to recreate the Italian identity Marco Balich, Artistic Director of the Italian Pavilion, toured Italy together with sociologists Giuseppe De Rita and Marco Bonomi, to show what Italy is like today.
Each region presented a worthwhile tale of expertise, one of beauty, and one concerning the future. The Home expressed this potential through technological and provocative displays, and the vital energy of the nursery – Italy’s driving force.
The potential identified brought together under four simple headings many of the contributions which Italy has to offer on the theme “Feeding the planet, energy for life”. The “Power of know-how” presented the stories of remarkable men and women capable of making the earth fruitful by loving and respecting it. The “Power of beauty” offered a marvellous journey to experience the “extraordinary panoramas” of Italian landscapes and architectures. The “Power of the future” featured a wonderful Italian garden,
with a seed planted by each region – and a story for each seed – so as to turn the Palazzo into the garden of Italian biodiversity. Finally, the “Power of limits” illustrated how obstacles and difficulties can become a driving force for creativity and ingeniousness. In addition to all this, the Home also featured provocative displays such as “The Mediterranean without Italy” and “blind” sensory itineraries, along with artworks and markets: a rich and intriguing exposition that raised many questions and suggested a few answers. The exhibition section marked in pink is the one dedicated to the "Power the future".
In this section visitors explore the metaphor of the nursery. Here the two meanings of the word (a place where plants are grown, and a space in which to raise and educate children) manifest themselves through an itinerary that combines areas devoted to markable biodiversity of Italy, and others devoted to a joint project with Italian schools.
The Strenght of the FuturePadiglione Italia Expo Milano 2015
The Vivaio Italia plant nursery was set up in collaboration with the Botanical Garden of Padua, to celebrate the country’s extraordinary biodiversity, a diversity also of agriculture and human culture that resulted from the constant migration of people, species and seeds (bio-geography) up and down the peninsula, generating the uniqueness of today’s Italian landscape and its produce.
The Strenght of the FuturePadiglione Italia Expo Milano 2015
Vivaio-Scuola
Italy Pavilion’s ‘Vivaio Scuola’ (School Nursery) offered young people a series of educational and entertainment activities inspired by the Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life theme. During the 184 days of the event, it hosted activities for children and teenagers, focused on the topics of sustainability and access to food. Furthermore, the best projects by educational institution involved with the School Project were presented in the Vivaio Scuola. The School Project is an Expo Milano 2015 project which involved both Italian and foreign schools, together with class work and visits to the Exhibition Site -- with the idea that Expo Milano 2015’s legacy will be continued through new generations.
The strength of the future: Vivaio - ScuolaPadiglione Italia Expo Milano 2015
The full program of "Vivaio Scuola" has been presented in a dedicated space.
MU-NARI Lab in Expo
Bruno Munari (1907-1998), who was born in Milan, was one of the first Futurists and one of the leading artists and
designers of the 20th century. Munari, a lover of Japanese culture, liked to make a play on words using two Chinese and Japanese terms contained in his last name. In the Zen tradition, MU indicates the empty mind that fosters creativity, while NARI means willpower and doing in Japanese. Munari can thus be read as doing from emptiness – the way real artists do, but also trees and nature! This is why Mu-Nari is in EXPO-2015 which, with the Tree of Life as its symbol, references the creativity of nature, which feeds the world and its inhabitants. The Associazione Bruno Munari (ABM), founded in 2001 by the artist’s heir and his former assistants, promotes his work, philosophy, and educational methods, which it also teaches. ABM has offered to collaborate with EXPO-2015 free of charge to design an interactive game based on the children’s game "Metti le foglie" (Munari, 1973, ed. Danese): drawings of typical plants from Italian regions are completed with stamps reproducing the plant’s leaves.
