The Difficult Heritage Summer School is a collaboration between the post-master’s course in Decolonizing Architecture at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm (Sweden), the master’s in Critical Urbanisms at the University of Basel (Switzerland), and the municipality of Carlentini (Syracuse).
The summer school took place at Borgo Rizza, a rural settlement originally built in 1940 by the Italian fascist regime. The first edition saw the participation of students from the two universities from various European countries, citizens from the local community of Carlentini, curators from European museums as well as professors and researchers from Al-Quds University (Palestine) and Makerere Social Research Institute (Uganda), along with other PhD students from Italy, Portugal, and Sweden.
The Difficult Heritage Summer School aims to critically reflect and intervene in the contemporary debate on architectural heritage associated with painful and violent memories, such as those of fascism and internal colonizations in the countryside of Southern Italy.
Emilio Distretti and Alessandro Petti
Architectural Demodernization as Critical Pedagogy-pdf
in Architectural Dissonances, Published by www.internationaleonline.org, December 2021
DAY 1: meeting Carlentini inhabitants
To present the summer school program to the community of Carlentini, on August 27th, the first meeting was organized with citizens who decided to accept the invitation from the municipality. This meeting represented the first moment of critical reappropriation of the space in front of the former Entity of Colonization building, and to do so, we set up a large living room, beginning to occupy the space with what later became the iconic symbol of the entire experience. Six Palestinian carpets were brought from the Al Khalil (Hebron) market to mark the space of our conversations. In Palestine, and in the Arab Muslim world in general, the hassira is a decorated carpet used for prayer or as a convivial domestic space to welcome guests or to rest in the shade of olive trees during the olive harvest. The sofas and chairs donated by the community of Carlentini placed on the carpets helped create an intimate and familiar atmosphere of mutual understanding and shared hospitality among the participants. In that context, we decided that this would be “our” way of dialogue and meeting—a ritual that would accompany us throughout the Summer School.
DAY 2: site visit
The day was dedicated to visiting two rural villages built by the same Entity of Colonization in the same years: Borgo Bonsignore (province of Agrigento) and Borgo Cascino (province of Enna). The two villages are in very different conditions compared to Borgo Rizza and are paradigmatic of the possible evolutions and risks associated with the preservation of this difficult heritage.
DAY 3:
As per the ritual, the day after the field research work, we returned to Borgo Rizza, where we gathered to share and discuss the experiences, impressions, and reflections of each participant. To do this, every participant actively contributes to setting up the space for the meeting, preparing rugs, chairs, and sofas to begin the discussion. In this way, we create a shared space and path, allowing each participant to feel part of and responsible for a collective process where knowledge is generated and disseminated in a horizontal and non-hierarchical manner. This approach laid the foundation for everyone to position themselves (regarding issues of identity, roots, origin) concerning the history of the Borgo, but more importantly, to reflect on what each person’s role could be in contributing to a critical and “decolonial” recovery of the Borgo’s spaces. The participants then divided into smaller groups to continue the collective exchange in a more intimate setting, allowing personal experiences to surface and visions and plans to be shared.
DAY 4: site visit
The day was dedicated to exploring the rural dimension related to the Entity od Colonisation of Sicilian Latifundium with a visit to the Experimental Grain Station of Borgo Santo Pietro. The visit also provided an opportunity to deepen our knowledge of Sicily through the history of local grains, their mutations, “journeys,” and contaminations across the Mediterranean basin over the centuries. Grain is an agent of change and a product of “cross-pollination,” a symbol of biodiversity, and thus also of social and cultural changes that are in constant motion.
DAY 5: gathering and discussion at the Borgo
After listening to the stories of the citizens of Carlentini, the theme of the physical and visual distance that separates Borgo Rizza from the town emerged. It was agreed that, to become aware of the “in-between” territory and understand this degree of separation, it was necessary to recreate a reconnection between the urban and rural dimensions. We organized a walk from the central square of Carlentini, where our group (students, guests, and residents) walked the 7 km / 17,000 steps that separate the town from the hill of Borgo Rizza. It was a crucial opportunity to become aware of a space where abandoned farmhouses, grazing sheep, (un)cultivated lands sometimes affected by arson, and rows of native and imported plants from the time of land colonization not only represent the legacy of a complex history but also form a fundamental connective tissue in the present.
Once the walk was completed, a group of participants staged a collective artistic performance in the space in front of the Borgo. The group created an Archimedean spiral using prickly pear leaves (a fruit that has long been considered native to Sicily) as a symbol of a constant movement created around a point of origin. The installation thus allowed the participants to imagine the possibility of new critical interventions that are not limited to the Borgo itself but open up to the surrounding territory to enable a reconnection between Borgo and Carlentini.
The day continued with the ritual of conversation on the rugs, culminating in an evening celebration attended by the Carlentini band and a musical duo that got people dancing and singing in the Borgo’s square. It was an important way to reaffirm that a critical path of reappropriation of difficult heritage also involves conviviality and celebration.
