Traditional state-driven top-down revitalisation strategies have resulted in new urban dynamics and tensions, gentrification processes and social exclusion. In the meantime, ethnic concentration in neighbourhoods overlaps with situations of social exclusion and deprivation. The aim of the project is to investigate whether and how area-based programs inspired by an innovative social approach targeting deprived and hyperdiverse neighbourhoods can intervene on increasing socio-spatial inequalities, at the same time promoting institutional learning. Institutional learning is in fact considered as a pre-condition to assure the publicness and sustainability of bottom-up initiatives. The project stands on the assumption that promoting social cohesion in hyperdiverse cities urgently demands a new approach to territorial development. The GF will provide me with new competencies to be transferred in Italy and Europe where the development of coherent contextual strategies for urban revitalization is of utmost importance. The GF envisages: i) an outgoing period to Canada, University of Toronto, where I will be involved in a major research partnership over six Canadian metropolitan areas (NCPR) ii) a return period in Italy at IUAV, based at the SSIIM UNESCO Chair to transfer the skills acquired, develop an additional training to establish a sustainable career iii) a secondment being based at TU Delft, Netherlands, being involved in the ERC Project DEPRIVEDHOODS to develop specific hands-on training activities and strengthen the collaboration among hosting institutions. If funded IUAV will provide me with a full-time research contract to invest in my career development. My profile deeply based on migration studies, policy design and analysis, urban planning and human rights will be reinforced with new inter disciplinary expertise and strengthen skills on community development, urban regeneration, social innovation, segregation studies and neighbourhood research.

The sonic environment constantly surrounds us, and strongly contributes to give a special atmosphere to every location, a particular ‘sense of the place’, which directly influences the quality of urban environment. This is because atmosphere has the capability to attract or repulse people, to make them feel comfortable or uncomfortable, secure or unsecure: it represents the immaterial framework of the living environment and perfectly reflects the effects of every urban transformation. In particular, urban atmosphere drives people’s experience of everyday public space, and its social and political implications can be finely investigated through sound, especially in regards to those vulnerable areas dealing with critical urban issues (such as depopulation, segregation, transformation and expiration of local identities and intangible cultural heritages), and to those vulnerable citizens who experience social, racial, religious, and gender issues. Is it possible to better acknowledge –and contribute to improve– the atmosphere of a vulnerable urban area undergoing spatial and social transformation by investigating and intervene its sonic environment? What are the related political, social, and cultural implications? The action intends to advance Urban research for urban policy analysis and design by implementing a participatory and collaborative approach to urban sound design, and sound planning tools oriented to vulnerable areas. In particular, the research aims to demonstrate how the investigation of sonic environment can support policy analysis and influence policy design, and aims to explain how the use of urban sound installations and sonic intervention can promote social inclusion, and sustainable local development.

RAMIFICATIONS investigates the central role of the contemporary artists’ periodical in mediating and driving shifts in the art, communication and publishing systems. Since the early 2000s, artists’ periodicals have become sprawling and live structures, engendering new business models and expansive modalities, collaborations and networks. These periodicals, produced by artists as part of their own language and work, offer a rich opportunity to analyse the expanded field of art publishing and to think critically about contemporary art’s fluid, accelerated and networked expressions. Deep art historical questions concerning art’s autonomy, the meaning of public, collectivity, communication and knowledge in current artistic and publishing practices will be explored through a cross-disciplinary, case study and practice-enhanced approach that will offer the theoretical vocabulary and practical tools to comprehend the fluidity and expansiveness that this project aims to investigate. Curating an artists’ periodical exhibition, conceiving and hosting a 4-episode podcast on art publishing and organising an international workshop on expanded publishing, will not only complement the research’s findings, but outline new directions in this growing field of study. By focusing on 3 global artists’ periodicals—e-flux, Chimurenga and White Fungus—the research contributes to the wider goal of giving voice to marginal stories, situated outside of the North-Western axis. Studying and communicating these histories and contributions to the developments of 21st century art is an important step towards changing public perceptions, encouraging inclusivity and correcting inequalities in the way art is interpreted. The GF will be carried out at the San Francisco State University, Università Iuav di Venezia and at the Triennale di Milano to develop my skills and competencies and allow me to become a leading scholar in contemporary art history and publishing.