Tiera Viva - Carnia's Living Archive

tiera viva

Tiera Viva - Carnia’s Living Archive Master Thesis by Vanessa Deotto Master in Eco-Social Design Degree session 2021/22, 21.3 Faculty of Design and Art of the Free University of Bozen/Bolzano Supervised by Amy Franceschini and Roberta Raffaetà

tiera viva CARNIA’S LIVING ARCHIVE

CONTENTS

17 INTRODUCTION PART 1 - Context

25 CARNORUM REGIUM 31 HARD PEOPLE 39 DEPOPULATION PART 2 - Exploration

51 RESTARE 57 FRAMING 71 DESIGN ROLE 77 CHALLENGES 83 CASE STUDIES 97 APPROACH PART 3 - Project’s Insights

109 COEXISTENCE 125 FRAGMENTS OF LAND 133 AGRICULTURE

145 COMMON HOSTILITIES 153 RESOURCING PART 4 - Generation

165 TIERA VIVA 171 CONCEPTS 203 PLACES 209 WORKSHOP PART 5 - What Next

221 EVALUATION 231 FUTURE PERSPECTIVES 239 CONCLUSIONS 245 REFERENCES 251 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

a chei ch’a no tornaran plui parc’ch’a son muarz a chei ch’a no tornaran plui e ch’a son vîs e chei ch’a son tornâz par murî o par tornâ a partî

(Dedica, Leonardo Zanier, 1960-62)

Ai miei paisans

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ABSTRACT

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In the last thirty years, the depopulation of the mountain has intensified considerably leading masses of people to abandon their native places.

Thus, the land, a symbol of nourishment and life, which over the centuries has guaranteed the survival of peoples by representing one of the most important sources of wealth and sustenance, has lost all value. In the North-East of Italy, the Carnia’s territory has founded its history and culture in its own lands, giving life to traditions, stories, proverbs, rural practices and gestures and identifying a community. One of the solutions to counter depopulation is to decide to stay or to arrive, thus re-inhabiting the marginal places of Carnia. Therefore, it is necessary to give new value to what most identifies Carnia such as natural resources and its promontories to be considered a favorable place for the reception of compatible rural realities inclined to safeguard everything that surrounds them. Tiera Viva - Living Archive of Carnia, is a project conceived to counter depopulation by favoring the stay in the territory of Carnia through the revaluation of what is present.

ABSTRACT

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INTRODUCTION

Over the past thirty years, urbanization advancements have been a serious threat to peripheral territories. The attraction to the urban world has led large masses of people to abandon their places in search of a new life, far from the land. In the North-East of Italy, located in the Oriental Alps, there exist a territory that hardly still resists the looming threats of abandonment, its name is Carnia. Its forests and headlands have always characterized it as a severe and hostile territory, where life flows intensively entangled in nature’s mutations. In an instant, the land, considered until then the only source of nourishment and wealth, lost its value and with it all that was inevitably bound. Human beings, little by little, began to lose their interest in those lands that brought only fatigue, preferring to abandon them towards better horizons. Houses and villages were abandoned and their stories, practices, words, and gestures which, represented the territory, began to scatter and get lost. One possible solution to revive these territories saving them from abandonment is to remain, deciding to do not leave or to arrive believing in the potentials that the territory offers. Remaining, then, would mean to bet on the marginal territories that have been part of the soul’s past peoples, to pursue a lifestyle that is concordant with the territory and, to fight for and

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with the territory against the homologate capitalistic world that makes of humans and other-than-human an insignificant part of the whole system led by the few. But how to convince people to stay? How to restore value to what has been lost and forgotten by most? It is precisely in that abandoned land that the answer is hidden, in the same land where all the people who have lived there have inevitably sunk roots.

STATE OF THE ART A lot has been written about depopulation in Carnia, Michele Gortani in Lo Spopolamento della Montagna Friulana wrote about the problem as early as 1938, while Patrick Heady in Hard People made an anthropological framework on the community in the 90s which is, for some aspects, still current. This means that the problem of depopulation is intrinsically linked to the history of the community and to the conformation of the territory itself which identifies the people in Carnia.

Today the attention of the writings focuses more on the possible solutions to be implemented as in the recent book Montagne di Mezzo by Mauro Varotto in which are presented some aspects of fundamental importance to be taken into consideration when talking about mountains and depopulation. Vito

INTRODUCTION

Teti, instead, in his Pietre di Pane, framed the problem of depopulation in the south of Italy by encouraging the restanza, a term he used to evoke the act of remaining in a territory, and making it applicable to all marginal areas that are experiencing intense abandonment.

DOCUMENTATION STRUCTURE Through contextual research, the value of the land for the people who have decided to stay creating a strong bond with it was investigated and brought to light in the Tiera Viva project. The documentation is divided into five main parts which follow the path made from the encounter with the community to the conceptualization and realization of the idea.

The first part is dedicated to the context, Carnia, and the problem, depopulation, while the second part is focused on the exploration characterized by possible solutions and inspirations with a brief description of the approach used. The third part is characterized by the insights proceeds from the various interviews carried out in the area, representing the most important theoretical part where the community's concerns are analyzed. The project is then extensively covered in the fourth and fifth part where is described and evaluated while planning the next steps to be taken.

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INTRODUCTION

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PART 1 - Context

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CARNORUM REGIUM

PART 1 - Context

Tu ses la me tjare, Tu ses la me cjase, se tu tu murs, jo mur cun te.

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(Carnorum Regio Inno della Carnia, Giovanni Canciani, 2001).

Carnia, from the latin Carniacum, is an Alpine territory that takes its name from the Carni from Karn rock, the Celtic population who settled down on its heights. The territory is located in the NorthEast of Italy in the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, delimited by the countries of Austria and Slovenia, thus attributing it the definition of border territory.

The area is characterized by the moderate mountain ranges of the Carnic Alps and pre-Alps that have given shape to eight divers valleys. The major ones are four and they take their name from the four most important rivers and streams of Carnia: Val Tagliamento, Val Degano, Valle del But and Val Chiarsò. The remain four have a minor extension and they are called Valcalda, Val Pesarina, Val Lumiei and Val Pontaiba. They are characterized by divers’ features including soil shapes, rock texture and composition, wood typology and amplitude and they are composed by 28 municipalities dislocated between 280 and 1400 meters a.s.l. with an overall population of 37.147 inhabitants1. ¹ Istat Data 2019 TIERA VIVA

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ON LIVING STONES The Carnic Alps have been shaped from the overlap of several layers in 10km of total depth. The sedimentary rocks presented are the most ancient of the entire Alps ascending from the Ordovician, the early Paleozoic era (Venturini, 2012). Moreover, Carnia’ soil nature is various and unique to the reference territory or valley. The occidental part of the mountain chain, in particular the Val Degano, is characterized by limestone Devonic2 peaks which, using Michele Gortani’s (1938, p. 21) words, they “emerge from an extensive blanket of mostly carbonic schists with eruptive masses, fertile pastures and woods, expanded with ridges or terminal plateaus from which wide slopes descend”. Here, the rocks have been shaped with the life of primordial marine organisms which lived in the depths of the sea that covered the entire territory (Venturini, 2012). The lower part of the valley, instead, is distinguished by inferior Triassic rocks that gave life to rounded and bumps heights.

The Valle del But is a wide territory delimited by Devonian limestones on one side and dark coal rocks on the other. The Val Chiarsò is characterized by layered Ordovician rocks which was submerged by the sea and the marine life. Lastly, the Val ² The period refers to 416-360 millions of year ago

PART 1 - Context

Tagliamento from the Triassic era is characterized

by Dolomite rocks (Venturini, 2012).

ON WOODS AND CROPS The mild climate with frequent rains and nebulosity that increase the percentage of humidity has given life to dense and rich vegetation that manages to settle even in the most arid and inaccessible soils with a decrement in altitude which limits the vegetation life below the 1700 meters a.s.l., compared to the neighboring Alpine territories.

In fact, at the lower altitudes, in the submontane area, vegetation is distinguished by oaks and rare chestnut woods, while between 500 and 1500 meters a.s.l. it is common to encounter beech and fir woods. Above this trees’ line, only mountain pines and shrubs come to life (Gortani, 1938). Due to the steep slopes of the valleys, the forest is the only extensive crop capable of growing easily.

For a long time, these woods represented the only subsistence economy for the peoples who lived the territory, thus becoming skilled lumberjacks. On the contrary, crops and fruit trees had more difficulties in growing and developing, except for the more recurring species such as corn, beans, potatoes, apple orchards and cereals grown extensively until 1900 (Gortani, 1938). Commonly, the productivity

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of these crops was only relatively for the family subsistence, thus excluding the possibility to create a local economy.

ON PASTURES Meadows and pastures have been important natural resources for the Carnic’s peoples. Above the 1000 meters a.s.l., with the limiting of the wooded vegetation, natural and extensive pastures have been used for grazing domesticated herbivorous animals such as sheep, goats, cattles and horses, becoming, at the same time, the natural habitat for the wild ones. The livestock, in fact, represented the main source of sustenance, combined with forestry, and cattles were the most common domesticated animals that every family owned. As the population increased, it was necessary to bring those green alpine pastures close to the houses to more favorable and accessible altitudes. This is how the intensive deforestation under 1000 meters a.s.l. probably began. The meadow was used to obtain the winter forage for the animals, through haymaking; while the pastures made possible to create extensive farms, characterizing the local economy mostly based on dairy products.

PART 1 - Context

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HARD PEOPLE

PART 1 - Context

Dûrs e sierâts, hard and closed, are the adjectives that the Carnic population use to describe them as reported by Patrick Heady (1999) in its anthropological study where he underlined that “the hardness is, in part, the physical one, which implies strength and resistance to material deprivation.

Lumberjacks are dûrs. The Carnians cook their polenta with raw flour and point out that it is as dura as the polenta that the woodcutters cooked in the woods during the working seasons. [...] A man is dûr if he resists criticism and the appeal of feelings by focusing instead on himself and his family. [...] Sierât has a wide range of meanings, including reluctance to reveal one's emotions, taciturnity of confidentiality and exclusivity” (p. 87). In his book, Patrick Heady, managed to summarize the essence of the Carnic population which still describes them perfectly. Most part of the Carnics are suspicious, sceptical and reluctant to others, to the forest, the foreign. These adjectives are usually used to describe the community by the foreigners and by the community itself, but being hard and closed is something to be proud of, something that makes them feel exceptional and different. Moreover, the Carnic people have always been recognized as "hard workers", and work regains an important role in Carnic society. Work means sacrifice, and they seem to feel they deserve

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things only after sacrificing everything they can.

Work means also truth, it reveals what a person is in the community’s imaginary, and only if you work you are worthy. However, these characteristics are embedded in a troubled past which has brought several times the community to fight for their survival, and what more than anything else has helped the community to get out of unpleasant situations is cooperation. They hardness and attitude to sacrifice are the image of the territory, Carnia demand sacrifice to be able to live in.

LAND OF MIGRANTS The Carnic population, as well as the general Friulian one, have a long history of emigration. The often inaccessible and arid territory, the long and cold winters and the general precarious situation has always led masses of men and then families to leave the motherland towards better horizons.

Cramars were probably the first seasonal migrants who from 1200 crossed the alps to sell fabrics until 1700. With their typical wooden backpacks with drawers, they walked for endless months carrying their beloved Carnia and its precious gifts on their shoulders, such as fabrics and various objects. What characterized the Cramars, besides the backpack, was the fact that they always came back and

PART 1 - Context

enriched by experiences lived elsewhere, bringing new stories to tell. This is probably how some of the species considered autochthonous today were imported, such as cabbage and potatoes. For that reason, the Cramars represented a great wealth, not only for the monetary compensation that they brought back to the villages but for the incredible experiences made which, however, always made them return, ready to enrich Carnia with what they learned and taken elsewhere. In addition, Gortani (1938) identified five more migration periods from 1850 until 1938. Each of them characterized by an increase in migrants’ number and a change of destination. If at the beginning the migration flow was low and settled in the Friulian plain, during the twenties the numbers were drastically increased, preferring destinations such as those of the Americas or other European countries. The urgent need to seek employment and the recognized manual skills brought the Carnic migrants all over the world, creating real colonies that still exist.

Regarding that, it is still possible to encounter Carnic migrants in Romania where stonecutters, kilnsmen and workers involved in the construction of the new railway were called to settle there seasonally. In France, in Saint-Girons, a small town near Toulouse, some of the migrants still live there, called for their skills as lumberjacks. And then in

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the American countries as Argentina, Venezuela, Canada and finally Australia. All over the world, the Carnics passed, leaving a trace, and returning to the motherland enriched by the diverse experiences and people encountered. Accordingly, they have always maintained a certain attachment to their land, where a great number of empty houses are still waiting for their return.

COOPERATION Cooperation is often the only solution to be implemented in order to live in difficult contexts such as those of the Carnic mountains, and its population considered tough and wary have an incredible story to teach and resume. Initially, cooperation was used in the agrarian field due to the small ownerships and land splitting and it took place both inside the family unit and outside. The work was conspicuous and all the family members, both old and young, had a specific task. Parallelly, cooperation also took place between members of diverse families in relation to the management and custody of pastures which led to the creation of social dairies. In 1880 was born the first social dairy located in one of the most elevated villages, Collina. The model was quickly widespread all over the territory and in 1938 114 dairy were

PART 1 - Context

still functioning (Gortani, 1938). All those who, companies or individuals, had a production of cow's milk brought it to the dairies to be commonly processed into cheeses and derivatives that were redistributed to their respective owners. Nowadays the cooperative activities are limited and sporadic often used for collective land use. “The women used to form groups that worked in rotation on each other's land. The men helped each other in heavy work [...]. We would gather in each other's houses to work together in the evenings, thus saving on heating and, at the same time, socializing” (Heady, 1999). Cooperation has been an important factor for the reconstruction of villages and roads after catastrophic events such as earthquakes, becoming a social model for the whole Italy. On more than a few dramatic occasions, the Carnics have shown their determination to maintain and protect their territory, often rebuilding everything from scratch.

Moreover, the most natural way to cooperate has always been pictured by work, working together for the same goal to guarantee life in one's own Carnia.

SCOURGE The territory is deeply marked by several events that have inevitably shaped its upcoming and the whole community. The proximity to the Austrian border, in fact, led Carnia in 1915 to be involved TIERA VIVA

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in the events of the I World War, finding itself fighting on the front line. The men left for the front and the women were soon forced to join them to bring supplies of ammunition and food. Political activity resumed with the installation of the fascist government, but after the fall of Mussolini the German forces controlled the whole territory, until 1944, when they were definitively expelled by the Carnic partisan forces. In the same year, thousands of Cossack and Caucasian soldiers settled and occupied a large part of Carnia. They were entitled to Carnia as a reward for having fought alongside the Nazis during the advance into Russia. Then in in 1928 and 1976 two terrible earthquakes hit the whole territory, causing more than a thousand victims and entire villages destroyed, entirely rebuilt by the locals in few years. In recent times, due to climate change, catastrophic metereological events are more frequent and brought several inconveniences, destroying houses, roads, bridges, and often led some villages into forced isolation, like the Vaia storm that in one night destroyed 723 thousand cubic meters in 3400 hectares³ of forest, irremediably changing the face of the territory and its survival. Carnia is a fragile territory, brought to the limit several times, but strengthened by a community ready to protect its land. ³ Data retrieved from www.regione.fvg.it

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DEPOPULATION

PART 1 - Context

“An uninhabited mountain is not simply an unproductive or depopulated mountain, it is something different and deeper than a mountain without residents or without primary sector workers. It is a mountain where a reciprocally "hospitable" relationship between humans and the environment is lost” (Varotto, 2020, p. 61).

According to the United Nations in the World Population Prospect 2019 the world population in the last two decades has been increased by 1 billion and a half of people, while Europe is losing large numbers of inhabitants. Italy and the peripheral and non-urbanized areas are some of the most affected territories from depopulation.

In particular, the abandonment of the Alpine arc is one of the current concerns to which scholars, institutions and governments are trying to provide an explanation, finding simultaneously a possible “solution” to employ. The Alpine Convention4 is an international treaty that considers a transnational mountain area among eight countries established in 1995. The treaty has been conceived by CIPRA (the International Commission for the Protection of the Alps) and approved by the European Parliament. It is “a unique and legally binding sustainability tool that aims to safeguard sensitive Alpine ecosystems, 4

Information retrieved from https://www.alpconv.org/it/home/

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along with regional cultural identities, heritage and traditions of the Alps for the future generations”. It documented that in 2013 the Alps were populated by 14.232.088 inhabitants on a surface of 190.717 km2, the less densely populated area of central Europe and, at the same time, the mountain area more populated in the world. Similarly, the Friulan mountain are living a drastic increase in abandonment numbers that has been documented since 1938 by Michele Gortani. The concerns and related possible solutions are the same of current times: migration, economic crisis, change of values, hard territories that can be overcame by restored management of the resource, new tourism, and cooperation among municipalities.

THE UNCONTROLLED ESCAPE In 1871 the population reached 48.312 inhabitants, growing by 31% in the period up to 1911 and reaching 63.298 inhabitants. From that time due to the two World Wars, the economic instability and the closing of international markets which touched the area it is possible to denote a sharp decline. In 1991 the number decreased drastically to 42.685 units, affecting 26 out of 28 municipalities, which lose 50% of the population (Barazzutti, 1993) In 2019 the Carnic population

PART 1 - Context

counted 37.143 inhabitants, 6,8% less than in 2011. Carnia is therefore divided into two distinct parts, the upper Carnia, characterized by closed valleys, high altitudes, and reduced accessibility, which is experiencing the worst situation and the lower Carnia, with its industrial districts and proximity to the city, which still resists the threat of abandonment. Gortani (1938) found one of the reasons in the overpopulation, stating that “our mountain region does not give, and cannot give, what is necessary for life except for a part of its inhabitants. Poor and very poor mountain according to the places, it is overpopulated”. At that time, even the temporal emigration of men was able to bring an economic stability leaving in lean periods and returning richer from beyond the Alps.

However, the two main causes of abandonment are to be found in the limited capacity that, the mountains in general, and Carnia have in terms of land use and accessibility and the mechanization of work which led to forced emigration towards the urban settlements. The first cause is intrinsically linked on one hand to the arduous mountains that do not guarantee optimal crop growth, both due to the weather and the characteristics of the soil.

On the other, the limitations to the use of the land due to the splitting and the difficulty in becoming owners prevent, even if it is desired, to expand

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and raise. The second cause, the mechanization of the work and the imposition of a capitalistic system based on fast consumption and on quantity over quality, has given the coup de grace to the peripheral mountain regions. The mountain does not represent the standard, in contrast to the plain.

The territory does not allow the construction of large factories and the flattening of its reliefs, even if there was an attempt on doing it. Moreover, capitalism and globalization have caused a shift in attention from the local to the global, losing the intrinsic values of the villages and preferring mass homologation. Therefore, for the mountain population, it was necessary, easier, less risky, and often incentivized to move and pursue this kind of imposed lifestyle. Moreover, the intention to make the mountain a "livable", "modern" and "industrialized" place has led to the destruction of entire ecosystems due to the electricity sector which forced the exploitation of water resources and the construction of power plants, change the flow of rivers and the creation of new hydrographic basins that have hidden valleys and suppressed small craft activities.

“In this way the mountain craftsmanship gradually loses legitimacy in the community, it no longer finds apprentices for its workshop, thus interrupting the

PART 1 - Context

generational continuity of the company. When the elderly craftsman dies, the craft he learned from his father and grandfather will die with him, in this way, little by little, all the artisan shops cease to exist” (Barazzutti, 1993).

WHAT REMAINS What remains in these fragile places are abandoned houses, forgotten items and uncultivated meadows.

Houses are closed, squares and streets are emptied, and the villages are slowly dying, engulfed by the surrounding nature that erases all human traces.

However, everything seems to have arrested in the past, a distant and unknown past when people still populated it, and everything has been left as it was. Only the elderly remains, too attached to their memories and their stories to leave their villages alone, nostalgic to a past described as an ideal world, rich in values and beliefs that led the community to unite. And now? Everything has been erased, forgotten, so the rhetoric of "nobody cares about anything anymore" is imposed. But which are the possible solutions to adopt to contrast depopulation? It is incredible how Gortani in 1938 was already writing about a problem and related solutions that are still contemporary in these times. He found, in fact, several possible

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solutions: better use of the land, a diverse financial and tributary order strictly related to the context, the refinement of the tourism and lastly, the improvement of infrastructures and correlated public services. Nothing new, these are still the lacking points that would probably help the territory having better times. How is it possible that nothing has changed in almost one century?

Someone talks about programmed depopulation and the hidden governments’ willingness to favorite the abandonment of the high lands that are too expensive to maintain. Others asserted that the Carnic population is destined to extinguish and the land to be covered by a dense forest. Opinions, but what is true is that has been an uncontrolled and rapid phenomenon that no one has probably noticed. But how to deal with the present? How should the community stay with the problem(s)?

What to do when it seems to have done everything possible? Is really everything possible? How to enforce attraction towards the territory? How to build up a better school system? How to communicate with the absent governments and institutions? How to bring the problem into the everyday debate? How do make feel all responsible for the community failure? How to encourage people to care about one’s territory?

PART 1 - Context

“Care is an ethico-political issue, not only because it is made “public” but because it pertains to the collective and it calls upon commitment. Personal lives are both affected by what a world values and considers relevant and transformable through collective action. Thinking of practices of everyday care as a necessary activity to the maintenance of every world makes them a collective affair. […] Care is everything that is done (rather than everything “we” do) to maintain, continue, and repair “the world” so that all (rather than “we”) can live in it as well as possible. The world includes… all that we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web (modified from Tronto 1993)” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017).

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PART 2 - Exploration

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RESTARE

PART 2 - Exploration

“Restare, allora, non è stata, per tanti, una scorciatoia, un atto di pigrizia, una scelta di comodità; restare è stata un’avventura, un atto di incoscienza e, forse, di prodezza, una fatica e un dolore. Non si ceda alla retorica o all’enfasi, ma restare è la forma estrema del viaggiare. Restare è un’arte, un’invenzione; un esercizio che mette in crisi le retoriche delle identità locali. Restare è una diversa pratica dei luoghi e una diversa esperienza del tempo, una riconsiderazione dei ritmi e delle stagioni della vita” (Vito Teti, 2011, p. 22).

Staying then, deciding to do not leave the territory, would probably be the manner to contrast the looming threat of depopulation. Being present, deciding not to abandon one’s place, one’s home, one’s land. Someone, has already decided to stay, has never thought of leaving; others, on the other hand, did it as soon as they could and have never returned, or would like to do it, but it is an unbearable risk. The risk is to lose the certainty and custom that modern lives represent, the risk is to have to roll up one’s sleeves to build a better present and future, the risk is to be too far from what people are used to. Staying or returning must be an act of love towards one's own territory, an act of conscience and awareness of the duty that everyone must make things work again. Staying or returning is not a passive act, it must not be done to

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take advantage of a beautiful landscape, it must be an active staying or returning, a way to re-inhabit places and communities’ networks keeping them alive.

RE-INHABITING THE MARGINS The margins are all the places located at a significant distance from the urbanized contexts, often considered provincial, retrograde, and marginal mismatching the developed and industrialized world of the cities. They are often too far away for everyone’s attention and too unimportant for public debate, they are not profitable, they are problematic and often unreachable territories. Ended in a past that is too distant to be able to grasp, forgotten by most, but full of its own life, of that lived life that can be breathed in every corner. Those territories are a residue of a declining culture, of a slow living that evolves naturally, as Gilles Clement asserted (2004) towards a secondary landscape which in turn opens new life opportunities. bell hooks (2018) speaking of the racial marginality, defined the marginal place as “a place of radical possibility, a space of resistance”. They inevitably represent a gone past that is still strongly entangled in the surrounding matter representing dreams of lost worlds, but also

PART 2 - Exploration

of new ones. It is from here that it is important to re-inhabit the margins. Varotto (2020) underlined as a depopulated mountain can become a precious resource because they represent a “collective good”, the abandonment of people and institutions gives life to a place free from any constraint but invoking for cooperation. Besides, they can become places of “new management experience” where to employ an incessant care towards the surroundings “combining historical times, biological times, geological times”. Lastly, they are able to be organized as places with a “plurality of functions” assuming first the dwelling instead of producing and aiming to become “micro-centralities”.

STRENGTHENING COMMUNITIES Relationships are at the heart of the community life of a village and beyond. The exchange between people gives power to the community and to their own perspectives, and the effort on bringing a place to be fertile ground for new and concrete encounters is fundamental to raise abandoned territories. In fact, as described above, cooperation was at the center of the villages’ life, and it has likely still the same role in shaping new opportunities in marginal places such as Carnia. Giving power to the community would

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mean overturning the current situation that has given everything in the hands of institutions and governments that are always too distant to be able to create a durable impact. The revolution from below, however, also implies a certain preparation and predisposition of the community itself which is no longer used to fighting on the front line for change. In fact, communities must reconsider their power, regaining authority, re-identifing themselves with their place, creating a proactive unicum able to guarantee stability and certainty.

PART 2 - Exploration

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FRAMING

PART 2 - Exploration

Carnia must become a livable place again where communities are proactive and unite for the wellbeing of the territory itself. They need to strengthen the sense of belonging with the community, their places, and the surroundings.

Moreover, they should all be engaged and feel responsible for their own territory’s revolution.

Responsibility, or response-abilities, accordingly to Haraway (2016), is the way humans and nonhumans catch the various situation being able to consciously respond accordingly, becoming-with the other creatures.

“Response-ability is about both absence and presence, killing and nurturing, living and dying – and remembering who lives and who dies and how in the string figures of naturalcultural history.”

(Haraway, 2016, p. 28) But how to encourage the act of remaining in a depopulated land? How to re-establish a connection with the surroundings and the community? How to give new values and create new narratives in a conservative context? Firstly, in Carnia still persists a strong attachment to the past that should be taken into consideration. The past is a teacher composed of fabulous stories and real occurrences. Most of the objects, common sayings, and words used have

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a direct remand to the ancient times of Carnia.

Traditions are profoundly respected, maintained and handed down from generation to generation, even though with the abandonment of the mountain this faded away due to the generational gap. At the same time, the territory presents a certain richness in biodiversity and natural materials that should not be forgotten. These have been important resources in the past while today are completely abandoned.

Local seeds and natural materials represent the whole Carnia strengthening its diversity and richness. Lastly, the need of believing again in one’s community call to envision a new possible and preferable future in order to take action in favor of a real change. The pessimistic common sense that spreads among the villages should be transformed into innovative perspectives able to reshape the territory. All these actions, that could become a first attempt to generate a change, must be done by the whole community called to cooperate and exchange opinions in a dedicated space where they are able to feel free and open to enhance a dialogue, contrasting negativity and fear to compare with others.

PART 2 - Exploration

PAST NOSTALGIA The past way of living on the Carnic mountains is still strongly rooted in the community cultural asset. It reminds of “good” old days, characterized by hard-working days and the joy of being together. The past still embodies a way of living and approach to life as an ideal one, which differs from the modernity and ease that technology has brought. Thus, there still exists a profound will to preserve and pass on aspects of the past life. In fact, the several ethnographic museums in the area are a jumble of objects from the past that represent a disappeared community. The museums have probably the intrinsic purpose of stopping time in an ideal era where to take refuge in search of answers to contemporary problems, and simultaneously forgetting about them as if remembering the past is a way to escape from one’s present. How to deal with the persistent presence of the past and its romanticization? Antonella Tarpino (2012) writes that the very end of the past decides the existence of the present. As if as soon as humans are still attached to the past, they will not be able to shape the present, even though the present will always and in any case be inevitably related to the past. Would it make sense to forget? Accordingly, for Short (n.g.) Nietzsche was a staunch supporter

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of forgetfulness, defining it as active and essential to action. “Forgetfulness is the opposition to and the cure for an excess of historical sense, which is paralysing. This paralysis derives from the crushing weight of comparison with previous ages and great deeds”. In order to provide significance to one’s action it is necessary to forget the historical past being able to act in the present. At the same time, Nietzsche through the words of Short (n.g.) suggest forgetting “existing values” to create new possible narratives as a way to “negate them”.

“A man who did not possess the power of forgetting at all and who was thus condemned to see everywhere a state of becoming: such a man would no longer believe in his own being […]. Forgetting is essential to action of any kind” (Nietzsche, 1874).

In order to change the values of a community strongly linked to an idealized past it is necessary to implement a process of detachment from that world and probably the only way to achieve great results is to forget. But what should the community forget? Everything? There is something in the past that shows a way of acting that would be perfectly in line with modern times, a way of life that drew on the other, on cooperation, on life in nature and

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on a commendable spirituality. Accordingly, the Black Quantum Futurism (Phillips, 2015) asserts that “our past futurism, the hopes and dreams of our ancestors, act as important metaphysical tools that serve as agents to help one discover hidden information in the present time” (p. 7).

“We don’t want to demonstrate to you the oldness, the beauty and the power and organicity of a traditional culture which is almost gone. We are interested in the past as far as we have a present and a future. We only try to demonstrate people how spiritually poor they are compared with their ancestors. They have to be alerted of the richness they inherited” (Bernea Horia, 1990)5.

ON LIVING ARCHIVES Archives are collective memories’ houses where things are stored aiming to prolong their life and prevent them from being lost and destroyed. In history, archives have been places of several actions that undermined to destroy what was before. Archives, as museums do, have the primary aim to “protect” the past making it

Quote retrieved from: https://www.fernandogarciadory.info/ index.php?/projects/inland/ 5

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accessible into the present. The items stored in the archive are strictly embedded in the context where the archive is located, which underlines its partially lability. Dekker (2017) stated that “a document in an archive can change location, be recontextualized and at times destroyed in preference of another document, thus fracturing a once neatly organized administrative working process. As such, no archive is entirely stable or fixed.” Unlike museums, in fact, the archives are consulted and not visited. Accordingly, Dekker (2017) underlines has “modulation, movement and mutation” are important features of modern archives in the collection of memories, shaping the memories themselves becoming at the same time a political medium. The action of consulting makes the archival experience more interactive and aimed at seeking answers that may have an immediate impact on the present. Living archives respond to that representing a revolutionary concept which brough archives into debate. Living archives are “practices and environments that connect the organization, curation and transmission of memory with present-bound creative, performative, and participatory processes” (Sabiescu, 2020, p. 497).

“We imagine the living archive as a responsive, collaborative, and generative community space that

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counters existing systems of power and oppression, including the power encoded in professionalism.

The term “living archive” is not new, and we build on descriptions of it as a site that is inclusive, is never complete, and in which the archivist is an “active participant” in constructing the history that is archived. […] The living archive is the “archive of feelings” that recognizes bodies and memories of activist individuals and organisations [as] repositories for the stories of marginalised communities” (Almeida & Hoyer, 2019, p. 18) They are spaces of interaction and dialogue where to enhance collaboration and participation among people. The past has not a predominant role, but it is a vehicle to define the present and envision new futures. Living Archives are embedded locally in the people who created them, they represent a way to express community concerns and, paraphrasing Almeida and Hoyer (2019) they are not neutral, they enable political pluralism and they strive emancipation, they are alternative formulation that presents a threat to those who seek to consolidate power and oppress others, they create community and aspires to be a nexus among them, they change how we think about relationship between the past, present and future, they cultivate human agency through collaboration and embodied action, they

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are generative, and lastly they make space for nonhuman perspectives (p. 29).

AGGREGATIONAL SPACE The local taverns, ostarias, were the places where people met to discuss the various problems they were required to solve or to stipulate agreements with a handshake. They, therefore, had different functions in addition to the ludic one which guaranteed the community a moment of leisure and encounter. In fact, local tavernes were places where to buy aliments, sell personal objects, send letters, communicate with the extern through the telephone or the wayfarers, asks for information of all kinds, doing politics and administrating small villages, and where folk songs and dances were handed down. They were a veritable free, polyfunctional, and open social institution of the public life, where the innkeeper was a multifaceted handyman figure.

Moreover, taverns, as mill, sawmill, pastures and woods, were collective properties of the community who managed them directly (Corti, 2020).

Nevertheless, modernity and technology have led to no longer need those moments, which can be easily recreated through the use of a technological device.

From the moment in which the frequentations of the taverns have ceased, all the interactions

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that guaranteed a solid union of the community vanished. In Carnia, no other place has recreated the environment and functioning of the taverns thus losing any chance to encounter the villagers.

The urgent need for an aggregational space where to meet the community and discuss about the current situation is essential. A new space must be created in order to respond to people’s needs and wills to cooperate. A multifunctional space able to embody what taverns represented in the past centuries, departing, at the same time, from the aseptic and static cultural places present on the territory that are not inclined to create moments of dialogue and exchange. People must enter a new and a familiar space where they feel represented, free to express and not judged, where it is possible to mediate between institutions and the community.

The space itself must be a catalyst for interaction and dialogue, becoming attractive for people of all generations, healing the generation gap that characterizes modern society and ideally, it should be self-managed by the community. A concept related to that topic, retrieved in The Constituent Museum book (2018, p. 11), is a museum able to “put relationship at the center of their operation” taking the visitor “not as a passive receiver of predefined content, but as member of a constituent body, who it facilitates, provokes, inspires”.

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A question arises spontaneously, are the museums of Carnia ready to become an aggregational place?

NEW RURAL LOCALITY In one of her books, Vandana Shiva (1993) introduced her concern about local knowledge disappearance, engulfed by globalized Western culture and denied or not considered in the “dominant system”. But this system is also “a local system, with its social basis in a particular culture, class and gender.” The local knowledge disappearance is particularly perceived in the rural world(s), where agriculture and forest are considered separated entities named as “scientific forestry and scientific agriculture”. They are distinct as two different commercial systems where forestry means wood and timber while agriculture becomes a monoculture. This impositions from above reduce the possibilities of the small rural realities that battle to protect their diversity. It is for that reason that it is very important reconsider the rural area for the salvation of one's own territory.

Latour (2018, p.8) believes that is a question of “attachment” and “land”, asking “have you noticed that the emotions involved are not the same when you’re asked to defend nature – you yawn, you’re bored – as when you’re asked to

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defend your territory – now you’re wide awake, suddenly mobilized?”. In fact, considering the global problem as a whole gives little chance to take concrete action, instead everyone should focus on their context, on their land, on the place they feel they belong to. In this way, every action will inevitably be more immediate and powerful. For this reason, in Carnia, there is an urgent need to rethink rurality, to move away from the globalized world once and for all, bringing the community back to believe in its own resources and abilities, whether they are limited or abundant, familiar, or new. This will be the key to have a global impact “attaching oneself to a particular patch of soil on the one hand, having access to the global world on the other” (Latour, 2018). Moreover, being attached to a land and a rural life does not mean to have a “provincial or closed” views, as Latour (2018) described, because the attachment to the soil is still seen has “backwardness” but it is something “indispensable to maintain, to cherish a maximum number of alternative ways of belonging to the world”. Belonging to Carnia means belonging to its land, its forests, its meadows, its rare fields, and everything that identifies it. At the same time, it is important to define a new rurality, marked by the future of the territory, which unhinges the old ways of seeing by embracing new possibilities of

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living the rural world. This is necessary to channel an evolution of the territory that is still attached to its ways of doing that identify it, but which is also able to look outside and from outside, belonging to the territory and to the world. This ability to openness is conceptualize by Latour (2018) with the word Terrestrial, seen as in the middle between global and local worlds. Terrestrial is a “new political actor” able to “opening itself up” that “with no borders, transcends all identities” that has shift from a “system of production” to a “system of engendering” because it wants to engender terrestrials with the others “based on the idea of cultivating attachments, operations that are all the by frontiers and are constantly overlapping, embedding themselves within one another” (p. 83) without trying to enter in harmony with the “natural agents” but learning how to be “depended” on them.

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DESIGN ROLE

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What does the design have to do with it? What is its role? Design can be the perfect medium to refer to in such complex and problematic contexts, but it is necessary to separate and highlight which kind of design is required from the general term. Design, in fact, is most of the time associated with the ideation and production of material objects and services mainly related to a consumistic approach, or to the spontaneous capacity to humans to create things by using their hands. But if initially the creation of things was followed by a specific need in a specific context, then it has been shaped in creating for profit, imposing a way of living based on those (useless) objects. It is therefore impossible to give a clear and unambiguous definition of what design is, even for its persistent presence in everything that surrounds the human being and not. In fact, there exist almost 100 words between suffixes and prefixes that label design, and its multiple uses and results can be intentional or fortuitous (FuadLuke, 2009). Beyond the labels, design is a creative process through which different problems can be addressed, analyzed, highlighted, and/or “solved”, where the final outcomes can be of diverse nature, both tangible and intangible, immediate or tardy, resolutive or provocative. Design is capable of triggering a change by remodeling itself according to the different needs and requests by creating

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strong alliances with other similar or, apparently, not disciplines. But what often differentiates design from other disciplines is its being, most of the time, a direct consequence of a personal motivation that guides and moves towards the achievement of a change, even if imperceptible by the most. Moreover, design is never neutral, it takes a position in a given context and time space.

Design is activism that is, as defined by FuadLuke (2009, p. 27) “design thinking, imagination and practice applied knowingly or unknowingly to create a counter-narrative aimed at generating and balancing positive social, institutional, environmental and/or economic change”. Design is also able to regenerate the local “by creating a new ecology of place” merging the local with the global; it is able to generate reactions creating new perspectives; and lastly it is able to connect or reinforce connections among individuals and groups, co-designing together for a “social innovation”. In other words, design “makes things happen” (Manzini, 2015). Furthermore, what design needs is “moving into the pluriverse of interculturality” defined as “a world where many worlds fit” (Escobar, 2017), where every living being counts as essential part of the whole. Lastly, design has the special power to construct new cultural and social meanings through the ideation

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of possible futures that enable to speculate on what the world could be(come). Design has the means and capabilities to trigger a change, and even if it will not be effective and persistent as something imposed from above, it will be able to bring out problems and realities that would otherwise remain hidden and unknown, by attributing to them several possible meanings and results, encouraging a bottom-up revolution.

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CHALLENGES

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The challenges that will be faced along the whole project process are many and of different entities.

First of all, the approach to a conservative and traditional context could lead to communications and understanding's problems. At the same time, being able to give a clear definition of the intentions, the role of design and the interest that led to choosing that context and the related problems will not be easy and banal. Another important challenge will be working in a context already strongly disappointed by the numerous projects that many professed to be the perfect solution, revealing themselves as sporadic and temporal attempts to impose something from the outside which is not suiting the inside. Furthermore, proposing a redefinition of the values that have been handed down from generations and that inevitably identify the territory will not find everyone's approval and will probably be disputed.

How to encourage change in a society rooted in the life of a century ago? Lastly, the main challenge will be enhancing an eco-social transformation of the territory through the project which will be carrier of new ways of living and considering the territory embedded in three-time spaces, which implies the participation of the whole community and beyond.

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STAYING WITH THE PROBLEM “Staying with the trouble requires learning to be truly present, not as a vanishing pivot between awful or Edenic pasts and apocalyptic or salvific futures, but as mortal critters entwined in myriad unfinished configurations of places, times, matters, meanings” (Donna Haraway, 2016, p.1).

With her words, Haraway (2016) encourage the act of “making-with” the “complex, dynamic, responsive, situated, historical systems”, also called “sympoiesis”. Moreover, she defines the term “trouble” as “the task to become capable, with each other in all of our bumptious kinds, of response”, being fully aware of the actual condition without losing the puissance to react. Carnia is well aware of its situation, its "troubles" and limits, but it perhaps lost the ability to react and re-establish a connection with its own surroundings. Being aware is therefore not enough, and often the true limits are hidden precisely under this awareness considered certain and unquestionable. Staying with the trouble means to accept what individuals are and have done and restart from what already exist. “Our task is to make trouble, to stir up potent response to devasting events, as well as to settle

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troubled waters and rebuild quit places” (Haraway, 2016). Thus, it is not feasible to “clearing away the present and the past” to generate new futures. What is still possible, and never too late, is to build up diverse realities capable not to fall in the turbine of errors and discordances made and had until now.

NEW NARRATIVES “Believing in a utopia and being realistic is not a contradiction. A utopia is, par excellence, achievable”, this is how Friedman (1974-2000) identifies utopias, seen as mere realities. Bringing new ideas in a conservative context is often seen as utopian, something unrealizable and unimaginable.

This is often caused by an external imposition of ideas, which prevents a creation that comes from within, by the community itself. Friedman, in fact, affirms that only small communities are able to remedy their problems, and it is precisely on these statements that utopia is based. Utopias “rise from a collective dissatisfaction” and “it can become realizable only through a collective consent”.

What is proposed with this project, is the creation of different utopias (possible realities) generated by the community itself that is called to define its own future. However, in a context in which the community has lost the ability to be proactive to

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change, will be complex to restore and encourage to act, favoring the creation of new narratives based on rediscovered and innovative values and actions.

ECO-SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION How to foster an eco-social transformation through a design project? Firstly, it is fundamental to consider nature and all its inhabitants, humans and non-humans, as active stakeholders of the project.

Thus, they should be considered, addressed, observed, and involved throughout the whole process with the same regard and interest. This is a challenge in itself, to bring something that has always been considered below the human race to the same level. Furthermore, the project should also be the bearer of positive messages that encourage people to act and think supporting the protection of one’s territory. From the social level, the real transformation is to give empowerment to community, providing people with the necessary means. Through their action they should be able to create solid networks within the territory, enhancing cooperation and maintenance. Regrets, envy and the typical localism sense linked to the own municipality, in fact, must be left behind. The ecosocial transformation will be accomplished when Carnia becomes a model that can be replicated in similar contexts.

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CASE STUDIES

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(FIG. 1)

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F_ABLE F_able is a fictional archive of underused spaces in Roman Road, London, ideated by some students from the Central Saint Martins. The final aim of the project is the generation of ideas in favor of under-used and abandoned spaces’ transformation.

The whole ideation process is fictional and does not have an impact on reality using the method of “critical fabulation6”. Therefore, the creation of imaginary realities, fitting the common spaces analyzed and going beyond the feasibility, enables people to mentally traveling in search of better and prosperous futures. The project is based on participatory creative workshops held with artists and residents. Then, ideas take a temporary life through installations or performances of the fictitious ideas in the streets, documenting it as if it were real generating the archive itself7 (FIG. 1).

The Critical Fabulation is a term used by Saidiya Hartman to describe the process through with it is possible to investigate in the past, bringing out the often unheard voices from the archives through fictional and critical narratives 6

Information retrieved from http://romanroadtrust.co.uk/f_ able-fictional-archive-roman-road/ 7

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(FIG. 2)

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MARE MEMORIA VIVA Mare Memoria Viva is the sea’s ecomuseo of Palermo. It is a collection of stories, images and memories related to the urbanistic a social transformation of Palermo from the post-war until nowadays. The sea’s ecomuseo is described as a community and cultural space, mainly realized by digital items such as video, pictures and recordings. The museum, highlight the strong relation between the inhabitant of Palermo with their sea, and the places in general, reflecting on the sense of community and supporting action of local development. In addition to the museum, the multidisciplinary creator group, organizes cultural and educative activities with different generations. The tools commonly use in their event are community mappings, consulting, audience empowerment, participatory process, alternative education, and design8 (FIG. 2).

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Information retrieved from https://www.marememoriaviva.it

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(FIG. 3)

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A PEOPLE’S ARCHIVE OF SINKING AND MELTING The project is a collection of items from all those places threatened by physical, political and economic impacts of climate change such as glacial melting, sea level rise, coastal erosion and desertification. The archive aims to redefine the value of the collected things, considering them equally valuable and records of present reality.

The items so far spontaneously sent from all over the world and collected are reorganized in a digital archive (sinkingandmelting.tumblr.com) where is possible to have more information about the single objects and the climate impact9 (FIG. 3).

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Information retrieved from http://www.sinkingandmelting.org

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(FIG. 4)

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BLACK QUANTUM FUTURISM Black Quantum Futurism is an approach which aim is to manipulate reality in order to envision possible futures or desired ones, using “the boundless aspects of quantum physics and communal and ancestral memory to search for new meaning and methods in order to reshape the future now” (Moor Mother, 2015). The divers methods are used to “recovery, collection, and preservation of communal memories, histories, and stories”.

Besides, BQF uses three modes of practice to collapse into existing realities such as future visioning, future altering and future manifestation (Phillips, 2015). One of the activities they propose is the creation of living map which aim is to create “our own order and patterns in the universe or unfolding and enhancing the patterns already present” in order to create the next moment (FIG. 4).

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(FIG. 5)

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LA ZATTERA La Zattera is a project which aim is to “explore, share and disseminate knowledge of the places and the social and cultural history of informal and subaltern Rome” in order to map and valorize its heritage. The Zattera will then become an archivetheater of memories realized by wood recovered in the city, in dilapidated abandoned places. Then, a series of activities will be proposed such as the “itineraria”, city maps to connect forgotten places, the “memorabilia” a portable library, the “lapidarium” a collection of stone plaques, and the “fasti” an events, practices and rites calendar.

All the different activities will be characterized by collective artistic actions and ritual moment of conviviality becoming then a “path of informal open training” the SUN, school of nomad urbanism10 (FIG. 5).

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Information retrieved from https://stalkerlab.wixsite.com/zattera

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(FIG. 6)

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INLAND Inland is an arts collective in Spain which aims to bring art agriculture and territory in an interrelated relationship and exchange by formulating “critical tools and applying them through experimental practice”. The project question “the role of territories, geopolitics, culture and identity” between city and countryside. The Inland program is composed by several courses on shepherds and rural resilience and an Accademy where it is possible to work on related projects.

Besides, the collective promotes the “production and commercialization of agri-food and artistic product made by the agents with whom they have collaborated aside from being and “intermediary between local partners and persons interested in finding plots of land”11(FIG. 6).

Informations retrieved from: https://inland.org and https:// www.fernandogarciadory.info/index.php?/projects/inland/

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APPROACH

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The approach(s) that has been used throughout the project ideation and realization are multidisciplinary. After the framing of the various problems through an extensively analysis of literature, presented in the first and second part of the thesis, with desk research in local libraries and digitally, there was the necessity to meet people for real. The realization of a stakeholder map helped to organize the various interviews that have been done using an ethnographic approach while traveling along the whole territory. Then, the interviews have been processed and contextualized in order to give shape to the design concept. A long the whole process many expectations and ideas have been ribaltate, reframed and reshaped accordingly to the insights gave by the interweavers, the main characters of the project. All the insights, related to several topics, will be extensively argoumented in the third part of the thesis.

STAKEHOLDERS The stakeholder map has been realized by framing the main actors in four different categories related to the topic of terra. This has been a help during the phase of research and it has guaranteed the involvement of all the actors who, for a reason or another, were strictly bounded to the terra. The

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four categories are terra as nourishment, terra as resource, terra as culture and terra as multispecies (FIG. 7 - 8). In the first one all the actors involved in the world of agriculture have been grouped among experts, farmers and enthusiasts. This has created various relationships with the world of school and therapy used against marginalization.

The second categories groups all the various experts of soil and forest, while the third one is represented by local museums, archives, artisans and cultural associations. The last one, is a combination of beekeepers, botanists and plants amateur. Besides, some personalities external to the context, but related to the topic, were also considered, involved in order to collect different experiences and insights. Entering their world

(FIG. 7)

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100 ENOS COSTANTINI COMUNITA’ MONTANA

SANDRO MENEGO

EXPERTS

TERRA AS NOURISHMENT

ELIANA SOLARI LORENZA CAMOL

E

LOCAL SEEDS FIORINDO MAZZOLINI

SCHOOLS

NEREO PE

RICCARDO DE INFA NEREO DARIO

LOCAL FARMERS COP. MONT

DEVIS BONANNI WILD ANIMALS

DOMESTICATED ANIMALS ARMIDA PLOZZER

LUCIA PROTTO

MUSEUMS

EMILIO TRO

SIEGFRIED DE RACHEWILTZ

(EX.)

ANDREA PETRIS ADRIANA STROILI

ARCHIVES

ARTISAN

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TERRA AS CULTURE

CARNIA ARTE TESSILE COCULA

ASSOCIATIONS/REALITIES

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101 RENATO GARIBALDI

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BEEKEEPERS

ERESSON

ANDREA CONTE

ERSA

MARGINALIZED

BOTANISTS

ANTI

BEES

PARKOASI

ADRIANO MARZONA

LA POLSE

DOMENICO MOLFETTA

SPONTANEOUS PLANTS

TERRA AS MULTISPECIENESS

SOIL EXPERTS ANGELA

FIRMINO SOIL

ONCHIN

ERIKA ANDENNA

FOREST EXPERTS

ARRIGO OLIVIERI

TREES

LUCIANO SULLI

NS

ROBERTO MARZONA

PIERO CAPELLARI

TERRA AS RESOURCE

E

(FIG. 8) - STAKEHOLDER MAP BIANCA ELZENBAUMER (EX.)

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through interviews allowed other actors to emerge such as animals, plants, other living and not-living.

The categories used soon proved to be limiting and often the result of stereotypes, the division into categories was useful for organizing at first but was soon abandoned to favor a completely cohesive understanding, without useless and often misleading labels.

INTERVIEWS The interviews have been done using an ethnographic approach, thus trying to enter private places without judgments and claims to freely feel part of the environment. This allowed both to visit places in Carnia (FIG. 9) that are experiencing depopulation in different ways, and to enter the lives of the interviewees for a moment. The interviews were initially intended to collect material for the archive, asking direct questions related to it such as “which object would you bequeath to future generations?”. After a couple of interviews, the questions changed favoring less limiting but broad-based conversations. This allowed addressing several issues that often returned spontaneously in the various interviews made on the field. The interviews, little by little, revealed one picture of today's Carnia. The worries, the wills, the desires,

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(FIG. 9)

the stories were often the same as they were repeated from interview to interview. Although the territory is large and diverse, the portion of the community interviewed has shown to have aligned thinking, some more positive some less. This has brought to light an interesting aspect: a community that at first glance seems divided and antagonistic turns out to be more united than it seems, at least in thinking. Some interview fragments will accompany the third part of the thesis to complete the analysis of the various topics addressed in the interviews themselves.

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EXPECTATIONS The expectations created initially, probably derived from a stereotyped view of the context, soon turned out to be false. The first expectation was to find people unwilling to dialogue and with a very closed and traditional vision of the territory’s capacities.

The availability of the people met, who let enter a stranger into their homes, in the middle of the pandemic, without asking and demanding, but with the desire to tell their visions and stories, was unexpected. At the same time, the early stage of the project was based on the collection of mostly traditions and memories, soon transformed into a collection of local seeds, words, concerns and visions about the future. The project thus came to life through their words, adding one piece after another, reframing and reshaping the identity of the archive several times, but confirming the importance and urgency of uniting the various local realities.

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COEXISTENCE

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Coexisting in a more than human world is one of the most controversial topics on the Carnic mountains. After more than a century wild animals and woods are approaching human settlements, domesticated and wild animals are at the center of the debate between who protects the first and who the seconds, angry farmers are blaming the State and villages are getting smaller.

At the same time, the conquering nature of humans which brought cities, streets, and infrastructures, even in the most unthinkable places, led to destruction and damage to the natural world. The same natural world which, in Western society, is perceived as something separate from the human world to colonize that seems not to belong to human beings, but to represent a separated entity to fight for the imposition of human supremacy.

In Carnia, the perception is often that of having succeeded in establishing a mutual relationship with the surrounding natural world which identify the territory as a wild and unexplored land where everything is respected and maintained. But is it true? What hides below the blanket of trees?

HYPERSEPARATION The world has entered unofficially a new geological era: the Anthropocene. The term, coined in 1980

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by the atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen and the diatom researcher Eugene F. Stoermer, refers to the impact that humans are having on the planet (Pavid, n.g.). An irreversible impact is damaging the physical, biological, and chemical condition of the Earth partially due to the increased amount of CO2 emissions dispersed in the atmosphere and the production of new polluting materials. The causes related to it are manyfold: the growing population, the mechanization of the work, the technological advancements, and the willingness to underline human supremacy over the others. Regarding to that, the eco-feminist philosopher Val Plumwood defined the way of separating human beings and others as “hyperseparation” which remarks the apparent differences between animals and human beings, defined as oppositional and extreme.

“Mind is imagined to be over and above matter, cosmos or heaven is deemed to be over and above earth, eternity and certainty are valued over and above transience, mutability and uncertainty, and so on. The hierarchy of superiority is also a hierarchy of control: culture over nature, mind over matter […] A major dualism is that between “culture” and “nature”. Culture refers to human beings, and nature refers to all rest of the living world that is not human. Nature/culture is a divide

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between humans and the rest that sets the human over and above all else” (Rose, 2011, p. 48).

This Western Capitalistic hierarchical way of thinking has inevitably shaped human culture and the way of living at the expense of the other living beings both animals, plants, and other creatures.

Instead, humans should refer to themselves, reporting Rose’s (2011) words, as “creatures emerged in dynamic relationship with animals and plants” with whom water and air are shared.

Interwoven relationships are based on life and death, where everyone has a meaning, and it lives and dies for the wellbeing of others.

HYPERUNIFICATION Beside the prevailing thought of the dominant human, in the Posthuman social theory there is an attempt to bring to normal the concept of “becoming with” the more-than-human creatures, as a new way to create nonhierarchical relations and symbiotic attachments among species. Thus, new ways of communication are required, involving multisensorial languages, while creating an ecology of encounters (Wright, 2014). Therefore, the awareness that human beings are connected to other beings as much as they are intrinsically connected

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to us is closely linked with the concept of care, “in which humans and nonhumans co-train each other to live, work, and play together to construct a relationship of significant otherness” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017). At the same time, it is significant to consider the way humans care. To care, indeed, does not mean controlling, commanding and deciding the destiny of others because, how Puig de la Bellacasa stated, “too much caring can be consuming”, it is extremally important then the way humans care. Thus, care must not be a human imposition, a selfish will that does not take into account the other, considering that thinking, knowing, naming, noticing or make noticing could lead to the reverse effect. Most of the time, as stated

by Puig de la Bellacasa “care is not about fusion; it can be about the right distance”.

But “are humans capable of loving, and therefore of caring for, the animals and plants that are currently losing their lives in a growing cascade of extinctions?” (Rose, 2011, p. 2).

It is extremely complex to initiate a discourse on more-than-human care in a context where humans themselves do not feel protected and cared for. In Carnia, in fact, the decrease of the population number, the abandonment of the

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villages and the government negligence probably brought a widespread sentiment of uncertainty and negation towards the more-than-human world. An interviewee, referring to that, stated that humans are dominant and devastating beings; this is their nature and there is no way to change their destiny.

Human’s progress and their existence are based on destroying what they encounter in their way, and they will not be able to change their way of staying in the world. Was it always like this? Or do humans have developed this adversity with the spreading of the modern world conjectures which brought nature to be only an irrelevant picture frame of human lives?

ENCOUNTERS While the whole world is facing massive destruction of the wider forests due to the deforestation, Carnia is hidden inside dense woods which are covering most of the human interventions and settlements. “Woods are entering our houses” (FIG. 10 - 11) is a common expression used in the whole territory, combined with a sentiment of uncertainty. In Carnia’s lands, woods have always had an important role in the inhabitants’ lives.

Beyond the commercial value associated with them, they represented a rich environment where to find

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(FIG. 10)

(FIG. 11)

CHIAICIS 1998 (FIG. 10) AND 2017 (FIG. 11)

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edible food from mushrooms to seeds, from plants to wild animals. Alongside the forthcoming of woods and undomesticated flora, also wild animals are slowly approaching the human settlements.

Roe deer, not finding accessible meadows at higher altitudes, descends to the village, looking for food in the few meadows left near the houses. Similarly, is done by wild boars, hares, deer and foxes. The encounter between humans and wild animals usually occurs on the streets or in proximity to humans’ crops. Right here, on the border between humans and wild animals the encounter becomes unpleasant due to the damage which they ordinarily bring to the crops. For that reason, farmers are blaming the State asserting that they should keep “their” animals, “the animals of the State”, away from human settlements, and that instead of protecting farmers they protect wild animals’ lives, living the humans alone. The situation described here brings resentment and demotivation to the farmers, who began to narrow their fields and reinforce the protection barriers at their expense.

But what happens on the higher slopes (and not only) where barriers are impossible to erect and wild animals are bigger and hungrier? For several years, a bear specimen coming from the Trentino province, where has been reintroduced, sparked

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the discussion on the coexistence between these animals considered “dangerous” and humans.

Bear Francesco (FIG. 12), the name given by the researchers who captured and equipped him with a radio collar, has already created havoc due to his uncontrollable hunger that has brought him close to pastures killing cows, goats and sheep, with him also specimens of wolves or jackals. The discussion is open, how to deal with this situation?

“Why does the State not protect farmers and their animals from bears and wolves? Have they a different value? Why, since they have introduced them, they do not try to find a solution? Why are they imposing rules from their comfortable armchairs without understanding the emergency and the gravity of the situation?”

The impression is that the extreme protection reserved to wild animals is to the detriment of the human one, who could no longer live and work in these contexts and be forced to retire and emigrate. The unpreparedness of governments and farmers / breeders themselves brings despair, with a widespread feeling of wanting to leave the territory in search of greater protection and appreciation.

Is not the growing number of wild animals caused by human's estrangement? Is the human being a predator in the chain that unites animal species?

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(FIG. 12)

ORSO FRANCESCO

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How did our ancestors manage to live with these species? What connection did they established with animals?

PAST BECOMINGS Animals and plants have always had an important role in the culture of the Carnic population. Several villages are, in fact, associated with diverse species of animals which identify the community through its characteristics. Thus, there is the village of the lions, and the one of the rams known for their stubbornness, the village of the billygoats and even the ones of the crocodiles because of their grumbles. The animals embed a positive or negative feature of the whole community from a specific village, most of the time this label is given by the neighboring villages or has very ancient origins and while some inhabitants are proud of their associated animal others are less. What is remarkable here, it is the importance that Carnia’s inhabitants gave always to the animals. Importance that is detectable also in the small farms where every animal has a name, which denotes a sentimental attachment to beasts. But what happens when it comes to wild animals?

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The population of the Carnic territory has always had to confront and clash with wild animals that populated the heights and woods, but if before the inhabitants were numerically more and hunting was widely permitted, today the situation has changed. In the past, hunting was embedded in the population cultural asset and was an activity exclusive for men. Wild animals represented an important part of the nourishment of the community, as well as the domesticated ones.

The connection among species was characterized by a dominant relationship of humans over the others. Then Capitalism came, with its apparent wellbeing and homologation which brought also the most conservative communities well attached to a past way of life consisting of few things and needs to respect the rules and procure food on the new broadly spread fancy supermarkets. Hunting became widely regulated losing its cultural value, and, paradoxically, humans started to withdraw from the wild animals’ world.

Hunting is not the solution, but it managed to bring together humans and animals in a close relationship through a tacit exchange, where the death of the animal is meant to guarantee the living of another being. Hunting managed to increase humans’ awareness of animals’ habits and features.

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“In a world of hunting and gathering, death and continuity are core aspects of the integrity of life and are always unavoidably present in people’s lives and minds. An ethical response to the call of others does not hinge on killing or not killing. It hinges on taking responsibility for one’s actions.

Responsibilities are complexly situated in time and place; most of all they are up-close; faceto-face in both life and death. […] More widely, however, every decision to kill an animal takes place within a wider set of relations signaled by the term “good country.” The purpose of killing animals is to nurture humans; it is not to eradicate animals or to wreck country. Good country is a flourishing set of relationships—interdependent and mutual. […] In contrast to the tactile immediacy of killing and eating that brought us into a region of encounter, claim, and responsibility when we were hunting, our Western contexts do not offer many opportunities to see most of the deaths on which our lives depend, either directly or indirectly.

These days hunting is the exception, not the rule, and it is so regulated by external authorities that it does not require a foundational understanding of connectivity and a capacity to be self-regulating (although individual hunters may indeed understand connectivity and regulate themselves)” (Rose, 2011, p. 18).

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Hunting then was, in a certain way, "becoming with" the animal(s) out of the necessity of survival changed soon, with the arrival of modern conveniences imposed by capitalism, in a human egoistic purpose which was no longer caused by a real necessity but by the will to force human supremacy over other living beings. The same human egoistic purpose is also used to build relationships with other-than-humans to enrich humans’ souls or appearance without being capable of understanding what the other-than-humans feel or if that relationship in some way imposed can create discomfort in the other. So, if hunting is not the solution, neither is an extreme attachment to others, what could be a new possible way to coexist in more than humans’ worlds? What means respect?

How to respect more-than-humans? Approaching them? Hunting them? Or let them have their own lives freely?

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“Bees are everything that is not seen beyond honey, the work they do of pollination and sentinels, if they poison themselves they are the first to suffer the causes. Safeguard should be fair. We see domestic bees but of the same family there are other types that are heading towards extinction. We know the situation of the bee because we see it but how many millions of insects we don’t see are already extinct? It is okay to introduce the bear, the wolf, the lynx, but at school we were taught that large carnivores are at the apex of the pyramid, but if there is nothing underneath the pyramid falls, if we make scorched land those that are above will soon disappear”

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FRAGMENTS OF LAND

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Land splitting is another controversial topic which worries the Carnic community. The territory is divided in millions of land’s pieces of a few square meters disputed between dozens of owners. The problem has deep roots and is based on a policy of intense division and a multitude of heirs that has contributed to aggravate the overall situation.

The only unfractionated plots are high altitude forests and pastures that have been managed in ancient times as collective goods by the local community or acquired by public administrations.

The notary costs exceeding the land’s value and the bureaucratic process that do not allow to acquire plots of land easily discouraged local farmers and ranchers thus favoring abandonment. Is there a solution? Is it possible to reunify the land for the collective good?

PRIVATE PROPERTIES For centuries land represented all what the Carnic community had. Woods that became meadows, meadows that became pastures and pastures that became fields crops. Owning a piece of land, even the smallest, steepest, and farthest one, meant to survive. As the population increased, the land began to be more fragmented, divided among the heirs of each family (FIG. 13). Guaranteeing a piece of land

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(FIG. 13)

FORNI AVOLTRI AND ITS SPLITTED LANDS

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to one's sons and daughters meant guaranteeing their life. But what remains today? A multitude of abandoned fragments, emigrated and unknown heirs and farmers with micro properties located throughout the territory. In addition, access to land has become a luxury that few can afford. The notary fees for the transfer of ownership are greater than the value of the land itself, thus preventing bargaining between owners. Without land, it is impossible to develop any form of local economy that helps people survive in their own place. In this regard, it is clear how a system based on properties is limiting, and how instead collective management has guaranteed lasting preservation. But how to get a conservative community to abandon the property-based system and guarantee collective management? In Carnia, people are still very bounded to their strips of land. In some way, they represent an essential wealth, an inheritance, even if there is a lack of interest in managing them. It, therefore, happens that someone wants to enter the neighboring property to clean up a piece of woods thus avoiding the growth of brushwood, but the owner refuses. Or again, that an immigrant owner, who has no connection with the territory except for that tiny property, refuses any proposal in the management of HIS/HER plot. Or, that the land is fragmented between different heirs, whose identity

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and provenance are unknown, with whom it is impossible to get in touch or heirs still defined as active owners who have been dead for at least 30 years. And in trying to find the last living heir, the land is abandoned to itself, self-managed by the course of time and by the natural will. For some this may not seem like a problem, after all, it is the will of nature, but in Carnia, it is a cause of great discomfort and sadness. Seeing one's land come to life in an uncontrolled way is synonymous of carelessness.

COLLECTIVE PRESERVATION Sporadic cases have shown that several communities are able to manage their land collectively, often based on tacit agreements. The two main cases, born spontaneously in the upper Carnia, are characterized by the community willing to preserve local varieties. In Pesariis, the whole community is engaged in the cultivation of their own properties and local varieties of beans, that are sold together with an equal price, thus ensuring equivalent profit and continuity. In Collina, a group of farmers asked the community to use the uncultivated lands to grow the local variety of cabbage, receiving the availability of (almost) the entire community. These sporadic cases show that

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collective ownership and community agreements can still work. Even though the two communities examined are small and more isolated than other municipalities in Carnia, this should not be a prerequisite to guarantee the functioning. Another model that is spreading throughout the territory is that of the land association (Associazione Fondiaria), which provides for the unification of unused land properties through an associated management. The Associazione Fondiaria is a no profit spontaneous organization, regulated by a Statute and roles, which realize abandoned land management plans by guaranteeing the agreement of all the associates. In this case, the municipality’ role is often decisive in finding the land and related owners12. This is a flexible model applicable both for the management of woods, uncultivated areas and for pastoral activities.

All the examples presented demonstrate how a collective management ensure preservation and stability in fragmented context as the one of Carnia.

Accordingly, it is extremely urgent to make this model become not a sporadic exception but a usual procedure, unifying the land to reunify the community.

Information retrieved from https://www.regione.piemonte.it/ web/temi/ambiente-territorio/montagna/associazioni-fondiarie/cosa-sono-associazioni-fondiarie# 12

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“Here then is a centuries-old history of lands and natural environments, in their relationship with the short life of human beings, which do not count so much individually, but for the incessant succession of generations, for the intimate and lasting relationship with the land, and elsewhere, with the waters: perennial sources of life. The relationship with the products of nature yesterday as today is vital” (Barbacetto, 2000).

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AGRICULTURE

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Carnia has never been an agricultural territory, its promontories and narrow valleys have always put in difficulty the various populations that have followed one another to cultivate the land. In fact, the populations have always preferred pastoralism and breeding rather than working the land. Despite this, the rurality of Carnia has been preserved until today, bringing with it traditional agricultural techniques, tools, local seeds and knowledge. The guardians of all this are the elderly, some have preferred to forget those times characterized by fatigue and famine while others remember them happily and still today, they work the land making the knowledge acquired and handed down from past generations live again. Moreover, it is often thanks to the conservative attitude of the elderly that many local species have been preserved and today it is possible to cultivate what people cultivated a century ago. The role of the new generations, on the other hand, is fundamental both in preserving the legacy of the elderly and in having a more open look towards a new rurality.

COMMUNITY’S SEEDS Local seeds seem to have the special role of bringing a community together with the collective aim to guarantee their protection (FIG. 14). The act of

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(FIG. 14)

SOME OF THE SEEDS COLLECTED DURING THE INTERVIEWS

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preserving a seed is often seen as a way to create a solid bond with the past in order to "know where we come from, to know where to go", as an interviewee stated. In the past, seeds were considered a wealth for the rural communities, which guaranteed the nourishment of their families. This is how the seeds were inherited from generation to generation and taken elsewhere during the periods of emigration.

“Local seeds have nourished our ancestors in times of famine, they represented all what they have to survive. Growing local seeds means to keep a village alive until the village have something to give, it cannot die" (from an interviewee).

With the abandonment of the rural world and the beginning of mass homologation, many of the seeds present in Carnia disappeared in favor of "standardized" seeds received from the nascent multinationals. These have been advertised as seeds with better growth possibilities able to guarantee a consistent and stable harvest, even in cold and rainy areas such as those of Carnia, inviting people to abandon local seeds for standardized ones that could be easily purchased in nurseries. Agricultural biodiversity has thus come to a halt and even today it is not possible to quantify the number of seeds lost. But what is still often neglected today is the resiliency of local seeds, defined as such after having planted them for at least 30-40 years

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in the same territory, which acquire properties in relation to the environment in which they grow and mature. Today the global nourishment is characterized by thirty vegetable species, causing a “genetic erosion”, considering as an example, the 400 wheat’s varieties that existed in Italy in the forties, of which only 1-2% remain (Miceli & Costantini, 2008). This is where Genebanks come into play, their role is fundamental in conserving the regional-national-international biodiversity. In Italy there exist almost fifteen Genebanks where local biodiversity has been frozen and protected from the disappearance. The Friuli Venezia Giulia’s Bank of the Autochthonous Vegetable Germplasm (BaGAV) was established with the Regional Law n.

11 of 22 April 2002 and entrusted to the University of Udine. The aim of the genebank (FIG. 15) is the protection of autochthonous genetic resources of agricultural and forestry interest, including spontaneous plants related to cultivated species, or even species, races, varieties, currently disappeared from the region and preserved in botanical gardens, farms, experimental institutes, public or private gene banks, catalog fields, research centers of other regions or countries, for which there is an interest in favoring the reintroduction13. It contains more Information retrieved from: https://bagav.uniud.it/la-banca/ istituzione-e-scopi 13

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(FIG. 15)

BaGAV - FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA GENEBANK

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than 400 local seeds, of which 200 seeds are only from the Carnia area. Thus, the seeds are preserved and protected not only from time but also from catastrophic events that could lead to imminent loss such as wars14, fires, or other calamities. Choosing which seeds to plant determines the nutrition of humans and domesticated animals, and often what has guaranteed continuity in the conservation of local seeds is the attachment to the territory by its inhabitants. Local seeds, therefore, have a social, cultural, and political value and their conservation is already in itself an imposition and a departure from the conventional system led by the few.

NEW RURALITY Bearç, cumieri, cjampei, meda, falcet, côt are the vocables of an ancient rurality, lost in the maze of modernity. Something has remained, mostly cataloged in the ethnographic museums of the area that tell of the lost rurality, some still regret those times while for others are unknown. To counter depopulation and reclaim the good old days, it is probably necessary to re-establish a new rurality and a new contact with the territory. What remains During the visit to the FVG’s Genebank, the contact person recalled how the bank was of fundamental help in having preserved and returned the seeds to Aleppo after the serious destruction suffered by the war.

14

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from the ancient times are local seeds with their invaluable value to protect, uncultivated but fertile lands, dense and rich woods to penetrate and some hostilities and prejudices to be overcome and forgotten. What is missing? People, farmers, communities, the actors of the new rurality. There are many farms and enthusiasts in the area, so much so that it has not yet been possible to quantify them. They pursue their own ideas of rurality, some anchored to the past, some with a vision towards the future, but with an atomistic way of being on and living the territory. Their interest often exceeds that of the community and the territory itself and it has not yet been possible to bring a group with the will to cooperate for the good of all. Therefore, having a functioning local agricultural system means being able to sustain oneself territorially without having to depend on the outside on which too many already depend and for which the logic dictated by (hyper) consumption could change the rules and availability quickly. But having a local agricultural system constituted by single individuals unaware of the other cannot lead to a territorial and rural progress. Accordingly, the new rurality should be characterized by words as collectivity, preservation, commons, sharing... But is it possible to change the roots of a community and to establish a new rurality without conflicts? (FIG. 16).

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“About 20 ancient varieties of wheat have been recovered from all over the world. By sowing them all, only a few are able to adapt to the climate. Depending on the climatic year, some develop more and others less, but the product is always guaranteed because there will always be varieties that adapt. These varieties have less gluten, a natural gluten that our body recognizes, which does not create intolerances, in fact once there was no such problem. However, they are not easy to use because they do not rise like refined flours findable on the market. Ancient seeds must always be saved, they were born with us and our body recognizes them. Seeds are the history, the life of a village and are part of our genetics and it is nice that each village has its own varieties, because it creates a sense of belonging to the territory.”

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(FIG. 16)

ONE OF THE FARMERS INTERVIEWED INTENT ON USING THE SVINT, A TOOL FROM THE PAST USEFUL FOR SEPARATING HEMP SEEDS FROM THE PLANT

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COMMON HOSTILITIES

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It is evident how cooperation could resolve some of the most urgent issues, but at the same time, it is clear how Carnia is apparently unable to do so.

Feelings such as envy and sabotage, according to several interviewees, seem to prevail over the common good and this attitude of being cooperative with others seems to be lost in the past. Probably, the modern way of living and working have reinforced an atomistic way of thinking which brought to the extreme an individualistic sense at the expense of the community. An interviewee recognized the tragic earthquake in 1976 as the event which managed to bring wellbeing, interrupting the need for cooperation and being together for the same purpose. Houses were modernized, ancient jobs were lost under the rubble and well-being was rampant in the streets of all the villages. Will it therefore ever be possible to change aspects that seem well-rooted in the social asset of the community?

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ENVY AND SABOTAGE Envy seems to be a widespread feeling in the Carnic society, often followed by the will to sabotage the other, thus invalidating any possible social relationship. This feeling is characterized by an aversion towards the other, often without real motivation, or by the mere fact of having distinguished oneself for something. The fact of being distinct, innovative, or having a transversal thinking that undermines the common "traditional" thought, it is seen as an ignoble way to emerge from society. In addition, having less than the other in terms of possession is seen as unfair and unjustifiable, thus increasing the sense of rivalry. Accordingly, it is curious how two of the interviewees told the same story about envy, changing only the main characters, while the first remembered the story with ecclesiastical characters, the other brought the story back to a common fable.

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“St. Peter and Jesus during a trip are hosted by an elderly lady. She was particularly hospitable opening the doors of the house and depriving herself of food giving it to them. In the moment of the farewell Jesus asks her what she wanted in return: "ask me one thing and I will give you double" . The lady said she wanted everyone in the world to be heathy and fine. Jesus, unable to please everyone, transformed her house into a villa and fills it with food, and then leaves. The old woman from the house next door listened to everything, thinking of having missed an incredible opportunity.

The following year Jesus and St. Peter passed that way again, so this time the neighbor lady was who hosted them and makes them happy. Jesus knowing the soul of this woman said, "ask me what you want but you have to know that I will give double to your neighbor with whom I feel you are in conflict".

She, after having thought carefully about it, replied "take one eye out of me, so you will take two off her".15

15

The other story was based on the finding of Aladdin's lamp.

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Envy, has reported by Heady (1999), often followed by sabotage, can generate in people a feeling of uncertainty and discomfort that can lead to the abandonment of one's certainties and ambitions.

“The fundamental way to protect oneself from envy, however, is to cut off the communications that could cause it and transmit it. Any kind of hostility leads to the refusal of contact”. Uncertainty and mistrust erect impassable walls between neighbors and fellow villagers, compromising even more social relations and cooperation actions. For this reason, the feeling of aversion has increased also towards cooperation itself which is seen as a danger that could lead to instability or as a waste of time.

FROM ATOMISM TO COLLECTIVITY In Carnia community represents a fragmented reality, similarly to the land. A philosophical theory, the social atomism, emphasizes well the concept of individuality which characterizes a fragmented community. Weissmann (1996) stated that “individualist – atomist – theories emphasize the self-sufficiency and moral autonomy of persons.

They speak of freedoms, rights and exceptions, rarely or never of reciprocities, duties and connections. Individualism dominates our selfperception. It encourages us to deny the ligaments

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and nerves of our social lives. Perceiving every society as an aggregate, it assaults or diminishes the systems – including families, schools, businesses, and states – where personal identity, security and satisfaction are achieved. Every such system is, in atomist eyes, no less an aggregate than the passengers in a bus”. The individuals, in fact, are the matter of the society and “governments need to respond only to their individual members”, thus strengthening the atomism perspective and neglecting groups of people. From this, it is clear how the social system itself is fragmented and points to the individual, in which relationships are only "contractual". The lack of cooperation is seeming to be manifested also in the family unit representing an individual entity. Banfield in 1958, while studying a southern Italy community, defined “amoral familism” in response to why several societies have failed in economic progress. The concept is defined as “the inability of the villagers to act together for their common good or, indeed, for any end transcending the immediate, material interest of the nuclear family”. Families, according to Banfield, were brought to avoid cooperation with the presumed certainty that not even the other families would have been willing to do so, therefore based on feelings of envy and distrust towards the other. This condition of individualism, according

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to Banfield, would have led to the non-progress of the southern society which, unable to collaborate for the collective good, was unable to progress economically and socially. This emphasizes even more how cooperation underlies the functioning of a society, and how the sentiments broadly described above are often based on a turbulent past highlighting hostility. Now it is questionable whether a community based on individualism, brought to the maximum manifestation by capitalism, is capable of collaborating for the common good or whether these feelings are too deeply rooted to hinder change or it still possible to reshape what Mattei (2011) defined as “ecological community”: “organized around a community structure in equilibrium, in which the whole (the community) is not reduced to the aggregate of its parts (the individuals), but has its own traits that receive their own meaning from their ability to satisfy common needs”. It must be said, however, that in situations of extreme necessity, which often endangered the survival of the community and of its own places, Carnia has proven to be able to bring people together for the common good, as previously described for the reunification and management of a land or for the possibility of growing local seeds.

This shows that cooperation is possible although still very demanding in many cases where past

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RESOURCING

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Carnia's territory is characterized by several natural resources that have established an economic and survival relationship between human beings and nature. Resources are defined as any source or means that is worth helping, aid, support in situations of need16. The main natural resources that can be identified are forest and wood, livestock, land, waterways, marble mining, and soil. Many of the resources mentioned have experienced a condition of profound exploitation to be completely abandoned nowadays due to depopulation and a shift in necessity. If in the past the forest was used to obtain wood, which had multiple uses such as building and heating houses or for large civil works. To date, the forests of Carnia are no longer used, the heating is mostly supplied by methane and the wood is imported from foreign countries.

On the contrary, if in the past watercourses were used to feed the mills without changing their course, today there are few rivers and streams that have maintained the characteristics of the past while the others are channeled into artificial lakes and hydroelectric plants. The consequences of the contrast between exploitation and abandonment are perceptible throughout the territory and the question is if it is possible to find a balance between them.

Definition retrieved from https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/ risorsa/

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BALANCING EXPLOITATION AND ABANDONMENT Entering Carnia’s lands gives the impression of entering uncontaminated lands, where everything has been left to the will of nature and where human beings have settled without apparently disturbance.

But a different truth hides beneath the enchanted surface of the mountains and its endless forests. In fact, a careful eye will notice that some tree species are located at unusual altitudes and that riverbeds are often empty. If we take a leap into Carnia in 1900 the situation is incredibly different, woods are a rarity, everything has been razed to the ground at low altitudes and replanted with the tree species that meant profit: the fir. During a conversation, an interviewee was firmly stating that we cannot talk about biodiversity in Europe because of the human actions who, for the seek of profit, destroyed entire ecosystems and replanted them at his pleasure and convenience. Thus, it is improbable that the actual forests are the image of the natural response, partly yes, but the dominant species are those desired by humans. This is an example of how humans have established a relationship based mainly on profit with the natural resources that surround them defined also with the word “productionism”, as “the process by which a logic of production

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overdetermines other activities of value”. Thus, transforming “care from a co-constructed relation into a mere control of object of care” (Puig De La Bellacasa, 2015), or as Haraway stated (1988) “the codes of the world are not still, waiting only to be read. The world is not raw material for humanization”. Is objectification of nature always negative? How should human beings establish their relations with nature? Are they really capable of it? If not objectification, what? In the context of Carnia, the opposite of exploitation is seen as abandonment, carelessness and indifference. Due to the depopulation, in fact, woods have started their race towards the re-appropriation of land without any obstacles. The woods represent the whole of life and death that has taken precedence over human order and control. “Woods are no longer what they used to be, some say it is better this way, nature takes its course, but the trees are getting sick”, stated a local artisan. It is incredible how, apparently, for someone the human presence was a way to protect the stability of the forest, without humans only disorder remain. Another important point to consider is the apparently “balance” that nature can manifest without human interventions.

Balance means stability, and in nature cannot exist. As asserted by Ferrari (2020) equilibrium means “that there is a monolithic state towards

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which every ecosystem tends” where the relation between species have a zero-sum balance, but it is not true. “There is an obvious contradiction in this way of thinking: we believe and say that nature, left to itself, returns to the immutable and secular equilibrium with dynamics refined over centuries of evolution. But at the same time, we keep saying that nature itself is fragile and easily removed from its ideal condition. The result of this contradiction is that any action aimed at modifying in one way or another the state of an ecosystem by humans passes as negative. Which is a mistake”. Very often it is the intervention of humans themselves who manage to restore a natural ecosystem to the conditions prior to colonization. Nature goes in cycles, and never tends to a perfect balance, and even if the change is not perceptible to the human eye, it does not mean that it does not exist.

As underlined by Signorile (2020) the species, in fact, behave in an individualistic way, just like humans, but it could happen that their lives tend to spontaneously “aggregate and disaggregate”.

Every human action cause consequences, positive or negative, and very often they are unpredictable and unexpected consequences, but “the abrupt removal of an anthropogenic disturbing factor could also have consequences”. A striking example of this dichotomy is the Vaia storm that destroyed

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“Carnia is exploited at 10%, there is infinite potential but it is not exploited and used at all.

The possibility is there, the land is there, the land is good, the climate is very favorable, but there is a lack of realities that are able to produce a consistent amount of products, such as beans, potatoes, cabbage, which are in great demand but production is scarce.”

“We cannot speak of balance, balance in nature does not exist, even in a forest the strongest tree will live reaching the light by suppressing the life of other trees. We, human beings, need to destroy and exploit what surrounds us, it is our nature.”

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several hectares of Carnic woods. Accordingly, the forest abandonment and the human control and maintenance disappearance caused damage. Human beings are part of a system, on which they often inflict more visible and destructive consequences than other living beings, but they are not the only ones to do so. The condition towards which the human being should strive is that of a balance between exploitation and abandonment, finding a way to cause the least possible consequences.

So, what is the fine line between exploitation and maintenance? What is the role of human beings?

Is it possible to think of humans as the guardian of their own places, capable of supplying but not exploiting and of exchanging and not dominating?

COMMONS One of the solutions to which the human being could strive is the shared and bottom-up management of natural resources, considering the resources a fundamental part of one’s existence.

Humans need natural resources as much as these need humans, for their maintenance and for the power that the human being has to give value to things, but it is certainly necessary to consider resources as a common good to be managed

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collectively, humans and non-humans, in order to guarantee their protection. “Care requires thinking from the perspective of the maintenance of a web of relations involved in the very possibility of ecosystems rather than only from their possible benefits to humans”, stated Puig De La Bellacasa (2015). The human being is part of the whole and not the whole, part of an ecosystem to be protected and maintained for the good of all species. Natural resources have been divided among the few who own and manage them, at their discretion, facilitated by profit policies. Therefore, privatizations, derives from a society based on the individual owning and interests, ignoring the whole that constitutes a community. As long as there is sovereignty over natural resources, held by the state and private individuals, they must be considered in danger. On the contrary, being in equal relation with the surroundings, instead, would be constitute, as written above, an ecological community means being “all in equilibrium with its parts, with the resources available and with other ecological communities” (Mattei, 2011).

“The common is not only an object (a stream, a forest, a glacier), but it is also a category of being, respect, inclusion and quality. It is an authentically relational category, made up of relationships

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between individuals, communities, contexts and the environment. In other words, the common is a qualitative ecological category and not a quantitative economic one, as a property and state sovereignty. For this reason, the common is not reducible to a right (category of having: I have a right), but it is inseparably linked with the effective possibility of satisfying fundamental rights, which is both an experience of subjective satisfaction and of objective participation in an ecological community. In the logic of the common, the barriers between subject and object and also those between nature and culture disappear. An environment seen as a common good is not a static entity, but is at the same time nature and culture, global and local phenomenon, tradition and future. In a word, the common is civilization” (Mattei, 2011).

What Mattei suggests is to destroy the barriers of private property by bringing communities back to their forests, their rivers, their land. Therefore, the only possibility that the Commons must succeed in imposing themselves over the mainstream economy is a collective awareness that leads the individual and society itself to re-evaluate the own needs, rights and values towards a collective “degrowth”, finally shaping the human from Homo Emptor to Homo Civicus.

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Tiera Viva – Carnia’s Living Archive, has been conceived as a way to contrast depopulation and encourage the act of remaining in the territory of Carnia through the re-evaluation of what is there.

Tiera Viva, from the dialect living soil/land, is praise to terra shaped in an interactive archive made with and for the community. The aim of the project is firstly to collect things related to the territory and to the soil/land such as local seeds, natural materials and derivate, stories, witnesses, visions, and perspectives about the current territory situation and the future becomings. This material represents the current state of the territory, what is already there, and could still have the potential on making people decide to remain, triggering the change.

While collecting things, the archive aims to become an aggregation’s space where to connect the people, encourage dialogue, exchange on related topics and strength the sense of belonging of the territory and the community. The encounter with people during the various interviews gave the opportunity to know in depth the current state of the territory, thus allowing to translate their thoughts, stories and visions into the material present in the archive.

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TIERA Terra identify communities, territories and the cultures of places. Throughout the interviews it has been possible to observe how the terra element spontaneously returned several times in conversations, highlighting the community's attachment. The stories, proverbs, visions told and collected belong to the land so loved and hated that gave life and formed the community existence.

Each interviewee demonstrated his/her devotion to the land, marking the importance it has for the entire Carnic community. Terra is considered the center, where everything comes to life establishing a tangle of interdependent relationships with the others living and not living beings. Carnia is rich in land, the same land that has given so much wealth to human beings through its seeds, marbles, mountains, animals and plants, forests and rivers, elements which have made the territory what it is.

The aim of the archive is, therefore, to restore and give new value(s) to the terra in Carnia, enhancing the most disparate aspects and the limits that humans has imposed on it through privatization, while establishing new connections and possible co-existences. This value(s) is given by dedicating an entire archive to the praise of terra, considered as an active actor in the formation of potential

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encounters among humans and non-humans. Terra has the intrinsic power to encourage the act of staying through the sense of belonging that human beings are able to feel for their places. Staying would mean repopulating those rural lands while questioning the current way of living and as in the past, the land could have the power to bring people together for a common purpose, the salvation of their own place, and to foster the creation of a cohesive and synergistic community towards a better future.

VIVA Terra teems with life of its own, is alive, a beating heart that never stopped to compose and decompose living beings. In the innermost layer the past experienced is hidden, making only the representation of the present reemerge. Thus, the name, viva, alludes to the vital force of the land/ soil that has on giving life to things. Moreover, the archive is composed by living things and living thoughts which represent a community and their belonging to the land. Local seeds, marble, wool, rye, raw soil exude a forgotten past and the desire to stay alive, where they have settled, take there by some migrants or generated by tectonic movements.

Viva also alludes to the generating force of the

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thoughts that each of the interviewees emanated and that had to be collected and contained. Those thoughts, visions, concerns must be alive, and the best way to guarantee it is to generate impressions, other thoughts, and discussions around the most controversial topics related to the land/soil on them.

The archive therefore wants to be a living place, full of exchanges and interactions between the community living in Carnia, the foreign and the living material. It is probably only by bringing them into the same space that something can happen, generate itself and channel itself into reality. The encounter then will have the special power to bring things together for a new beginning in place within a place to rediscover the values and treasures of Carnia.

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CONCEPTS

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The living archive is composed by several elements that have the aim to bring the community who experience it in three times spaces: present, past and future. While questioning how to give new values to the resources of Carnia it is necessary to look at the past and how ancestors were spiritually devoting and aware of the wealth that their own land had given to them. The precarious conditions in which they were forced to live led them to discover and give value to many living beings who became an essential part of their lives and their culture. Everything is kept in the typical Cramars chest of drawers. Then the archive proposes the present’s concerns about coexistence, land fraction, woods and agriculture as the main topics. There it is possible to interact giving personal opinions and visions on how to overcome some of the problems related. Lastly, a new rural lexicon is presented as the way to redefining the alpine rural community of Carnia, new words for new purposes and objectives (FIG. 17).

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RESOURCES’ WALL The Resources’ Wall represents the archival activity par excellence. It has been built using three multilayer panels in a modular system that allows to easily assemble and disassemble it and add other modules if necessary. The wall has the primary aim to collect all the natural resources of Carnia characterized by a close bond with the land, the territory and its inhabitants. This allows having a broad overview of the local resources still available to date often overlooked and underestimated. The wall, therefore, wants to be a warning to community to save from forgetfulness and disappearance what in the past identified the Carnic community representing a real wealth to guard. The wall is free and open to anyone who wants to contribute to the collection and archiving of resources of the territory. The resources currently present in the archive are local seeds, mostly beans, marbles, flax, and building materials such as rye, carded wool, raw soil, and natural lime. Every resource is archived in plastic bags or hanged directly with their label which identifies them with several information such as name, donator, place and date. Lastly, the wall is intended to reflect on how to give value to one's community and territory through the re-evaluation of local resources (FIG. 18).

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Ceva Di Cabia / Cabia (Arta Terme) /Allium ascalonicum Enemonzo / Enemonzo /Allium sativum Verzegnis / Verzegnis /Allium sativum Quasi spinacio (lavaciut) / Intissans (Verzegnis) /Atriplex hortensis Menavolt / Ampezzo /Beta vulgaris Cavolo cappuccio di Collina / Collina di Forni Avoltri /Brassica oleracea Rapa silvestre / Sauris /Brassica rapa Cicoria / Ravascletto /Cichorium intybus Grano saraceno “Castoia”/ Paularo /Fagopyrum esculentum Cafè Mat Blanc / Paularo /Glycine max Prezzemolo / Ravascletto /Petros. hortense Palotons / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus coccineus Bolzons / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus coccineus Fasola / Pesarîs (Prato Carnico) / Phaseolus coccineus Chei dal Pape / Cabia (Arta Terme) / Phaseolus coccineus Chei dal papa Negrons / Agrons (Ovaro) / Phaseolus coccineus Coccineus Arta/ Arta Terme / Phaseolus coccineus Coccineus Ligosullo crema / Ligosullo / Phaseolus coccineus Coccineus Ligosullo lilla / Ligosullo / Phaseolus coccineus Dal papa Ligosullo / Villa Santina / Phaseolus coccineus Coccineus Clauzetto / Pradis di Sopra / Phaseolus coccineus Chei di Milan / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Ronchins / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Verzegnass/ Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Di Forni Sotto / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Borlotti 1 / Pesarîs (Prato Carnico) / Phaseolus vulgaris Borlotti 2 / Arta Terme / Phaseolus vulgaris Borlotti 3 / Arta Terme / Phaseolus vulgaris Borlotti 4 / Lauco / Phaseolus vulgaris Borlotti 5 / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Dal Voglut 1 / Pesarîs (Prato Carnico) / Phaseolus vulgaris Dal Voglut 2 / Arta Terme / Phaseolus vulgaris Forni 1 / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Forni 2 / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Laurons / Pesarîs (Prato Carnico) / Phaseolus vulgaris Militons 1 / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Militons 2 / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Militons 3 / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Cesarins / Pesarîs (Prato Carnico) / Phaseolus vulgaris Settembrin / Pesarîs (Prato Carnico) / Phaseolus vulgaris Tegoline Blù / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Monchins / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris I Vedus / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris I Cocius / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Tegoline Fornesi / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Tegoline Carniche / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Tegoline blù rampicanti / Arta Terme / Phaseolus vulgaris Tegoline per minestra / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Tegolina gialla lunga / Arta Terme / Phaseolus vulgaris Tegoline / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Tegoline 1/ Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus Tegoline 2/ Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Tegoline 3 / Forni di Sopra / Phaseolus vulgaris Grigio Tolmezzo / Tolmezzo / Phaseolus vulgaris Dal Santisim / Cavazzo Carnico / Phaseolus vulgaris Centut / Povolaro / Phaseolus vulgaris Borlotto Verzegnis 1 / Verzegnis / Phaseolus vulgaris Borlotto Resia / Resia / Phaseolus vulgaris Borlotto Avaglio / Avaglio (Lauco) / Phaseolus vulgaris

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CARNIA’S SEEDS 217, is the number of seed varieties present at the Friuli Venezia Giulia’s Genebank from the Carnic territory. The BaGAV, established in 2002 and entrusted to the University of Udine, has in fact, the aim of protecting the indigenous genetic resources of agricultural and forestry in Friuli Venezia Giulia. The number represents half of the varieties present in the bank, thus underlining the enormous biodiversity of Carnia, now mostly frozen.

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CRAMA The Crama, the typical Cramars' backpack, has been built by a local 80-year-old artisan (FIG. 19).

During an interview, in fact, what was considered a sceptical and rude man, has revealed not only available on telling what was before with incredible stories but also to build from scratch a Crama backpack. This allowed entering in contact with one member of the past generation who lived the territory when local resources still had a certain value. The wood chosen is cypress, probably found in the area, which gives off an exhilarating smell when opening the drawers. The chest of drawers has six single drawers and one of double dimensions. Every drawer preserves a history and a resource of the past collected during the interviews.

The goal is to take the visitor back in time by appreciating small things that today seem to have no meaning. This is how it is possible to make a dive in the sea of Sauris flax flowers, savor a chestnut necklace, smell the hemp seeds and marvel at knowing that flour can also be obtained from beech seeds. The intent is not to bring a romantic past to life, but to inspire the community to arrest for a moment and look around trying to notice what surrounds the human being (FIG. 20).

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COEXISTENCE IN A MULTISPECIES WORLD Depopulation and abandonment have caused the approaching of wild fauna and flora to human settlements, thus also favouring the return of the large carnivores that little by little are repopulating our mountains. As described above this is perceived by the community mostly as a problem. The debate is open, should protection be guarantee to wild animals or humans who still resist? Do domesticated animals and wild animals have a different value? Is it possible to aspire to peaceful coexistence? In order to cautiously tackle one of the most controversial topics it is possible to answer some questions designed to provoke the visitor. Accordingly, the first question aims to bring people to think transversally, is it really a problem that wild fauna and flora are approaching? Or can be seen as an opportunity the community have to redefine what coexistence is and how to deal with it? Then, is it possible to give the same value to humans and non-humans being? All the question are answerable by using a sticker which represents the answer (FIG. 21).

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LAND UNION Land fraction is the other controversial topic that the archive wants to address. Reduced and split lots, unconscious or unknown co-owners and the pervasive abandon represents the current situation.

Through the interviews it has been possible to collect different scenarios about innovative uses of land proposed or realized in the territory. Some of these are agreements made between the community that undertakes to respect them without having anything in return other than the maintenance of the village and local cultures. The different scenarios are reported in sheets of paper, while some are empty and waiting to be filled with new proposals (FIG. 22).

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LAND GIVING Besides that, inspired by the land bank and related projects, two transparent boxes are present in the archive with the aim to create unofficially agreements on land exchanging. The transparent boxes, in fact, offer the possibility to search or lend unused plots of land, stipulating the agreement between the two parties within the archive itself. Anyone interested is invited to fill in the appropriate leaflets with their information and insert them in the corresponding box, they will always be available for consultation by visitors. The intention is, therefore, to avoid notary fees and restore a collective use of the land that can be decided independently by both parties. The transparent boxes are a provocative way to represent the current situation, their being full or empty is already in itself a datum to highlight and show (FIG. 23).

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MULTIFUNCTIONAL WOODS Forest has lost its primary economic value, so much so that today its approach to houses is seen as a threat to be appeased. While losing its economic value, it had inevitably lost importance also due to the difficulty in redefining its value and purpose.

During the various interviews, the forest was presented in different ways such as a therapy or curative medicine, as a place for teaching, or as a vegetable garden where you can go and collect your own food, just as it was once. The tree was created by overlaying four different essences representing the woods of Carnia such as fir, ash, oak and hornbeam. The branches were then added to allow to keep tickets where visitors can leave their thoughts related to the multifunctional forest, a new forest that embodies values and functions of the past, present and future (FIG. 24).

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NEW RURAL LEXICON Future is represented by the New Rural Lexicon, a vocabulary designed to redefine, through words, a new rural alpine community. A vocabulary made up of terms from the Carnic tradition, contemporary concepts, and words that are intended to encourage change and cooperation between the community.

The New Rural Lexicon is open to the active collection of terms and concepts capable of creating an innovative vision of Carnia and its future.

The structure of the vocabulary allows to collect words in alphabetical order by writing them on special white sheets in which it is possible to give a definition on the back. In addition, its structure composed of A5 sheets give the possibility to create different compositions of words and definitions capable of forming new possible scenarios (FIG. 25).

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PROJECTS The archive also wants to be a space where it is possible to collect ideas, projects related to the theme of the land/soil and its enhancement, in order to inspire the change. The projects were collected through interviews and are concrete examples of ideas that worked and still work today. Events dedicated to local seeds, study circles with the aim of co-creating a bio-district of bread, and realities that use agriculture to give value to the marginalized of society. Besides, there are also primary ideas not working yet but that could become interesting realities such as a school museum of ceramic and a didactic production chain of flax. The archive is open to anyone who wants to contribute by transcribing their ideas, thus presenting them to the wider community.

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PLACES

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Once having finalized the archive there was the necessity to find a place where to test the functions and interest on it. The living archive represents an entity in itself, it is not a museum, but neither a normal archive. Moreover, it needs usable spaces for meetings and events aimed at dialogue and exchange or creative workshops. A space visible from the outside so as to intrigue passers-by, rethinking the concept of tavern. The place is also important, some villages, in fact, are not suitable for hosting this archive due to their "remoteness" from the main theme or their lack of interest. It is important that the place represents the archive itself, triggering communication between them.

Furthermore, the archive could also become itinerant and move around the territory, thus reaching even the most distant and isolated villages.

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SELLA CHIANZUTAN The place, made available by the municipality, is a recently renovated space containing the permanent exhibition of the local Verzegnis red marble (FIG. 26).

The place, in fact, was the arrival station of the old cableway that connected the mountain to the village from where it was then possible to have access to the extracted marble. It is located 950 meters a.s.l., under the high mountains and surrounded by pastures and woods. Moreover, it presents in itself some features that characterize the archive such as the countless strips of land of which it is composed, where, however, the municipality has tried to unify making them accessible to the herdsman and the livestock. In addition, the approaching of the woods is erasing all human traces by incorporating within itself ancient dry-stone walls used as borders and ruins. In regarding to the space, it has been provided for three months and it is accessible to visitors at set times. The opening of the archive gave the possibility to test at first the interest of the community, and then the capacities that the archive should have on encouraging reflection through interactive moments with the visitors.

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ITINERANT Another attempt has been done traveling around three different municipalities with the archive in conjunction with the participatory events organized for the creation of three Civic Centers (FIG. 27).

This has allowed to get closer to the communities and their places, bringing a taste of what the archive is and addressing a wider and more diversified audience, therefore, between interested and non-interested. The goal was precisely to involve people in their own context so that they could be immersed in the place they know best, associating more easily, and visually, the memories or stories told to the place itself. Therefore, making the archive itinerant would be a way to make everyone participate, without finding a fixed place that inevitably excluded others. At the same time, this would increase that sense of localism present in every village due to not feeling obligated to cross the threshold of one’s house to interact with other communities.

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(FIG. 27)

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WORKSHOP

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What currently distinguishes Tiera Viva from a normal museum or archive is its predisposition to be a place for encounters, exchange, and dialogue.

The social contact is therefore fundamental to be able to distinguish oneself markedly from the places that already exist. The places of meeting and dialogue in Carnia, as widely described above, are lacking and it is necessary to re-create them in order to be able to activate something that can be lasting over time. The aim of the archive is manifold, on one hand it wants to be a social and cultural trigger for the wider community through workshops or intervention thought to inform, to intrigue and raise awareness on the subject. Thus, involving children and schools or organizing special events around the territory. On the other, taking advantage of the information received directly from farmers and various experts, it would be important to create synergic networks among those actors. This could be done by organizing workshops and focus groups where to create situations of confront on more specific issues or informative and expert lessons inspired by the Cattedre Ambulanti17, itinerant chairs, of the last The Cattedre Ambulanti were agricultural education institution that dispensed agriculture lessons to small farmers throughout Italy. This also led the more peripheral places such as Carnia to be "updated" on agricultural studies directly by experts of the sector.

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century. Thus, in summary, while the community is brought to be aware and informed by believing in the potential of its territory, parallelly the network of farmers and experts must be strengthened.

FARMERS NETWORK The first workshop organized in the archive has been a focus group which aimed at understanding how to create a cohesive network between farmers.

For the occasion, four farmers from lower Carnia, of different ages and with a different approach to agriculture, were involved (FIG. 28). The initial input started from the reflection on whether it was possible to create an exchange network between farmers and enthusiasts in Carnia.

Thus, involving an exchange of materials and equipment, knowledge, and general information.

The discussion dealt with several issues that are often underestimated. Associations. Associations, cooperatives, or other institutional groups which foresees roles and rules never lasted long in Carnia, always resulting in misunderstandings and quarrels caused by those who took advantage of the funding or by ideas that were too infeasible. At the same time, it seems that if the farmers are not guided by someone, they are not able to maintain relationships with others due to the lack of time.

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It would therefore need something that they can manage independently without specific roles, something spontaneous and simple to manage in the long term. Security and insurance. While lending or renting materials and equipment is a good deed, it implies several limitations that are borderline legal. Farmers have begun to discuss how lending tools can led to safety issue and risks if the machinery is damaged by the other. Who is liable for damages? Who is responsible? How to do if too many farmers ask for the same tool having only a limited period to sow, considering the rainfall of the territory? Resale. Then the discussion focused on resale, which could be a way to make easier for some farmers to sell their products to other farms. But resale on behalf of third parties, according to the discussion, appears to be either illegal or bureaucratically difficult to legalize. But what seems to be useful to farmers is information about other farmers' crops so that they can target buyers. In fact, from the discussion it emerged how little they knew about each other and how they never managed to communicate. The reality of Carnia seems to be even more fragmented, it is not known how many farmers work in the area, what their crops are and what they specialize in. The focus group agrees on the importance of creating something unique capable of bringing all the

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(FIG. 28)

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realities to the attention both for the visibility of the territory for the community and for the farmers. But what? What could easily gather information and, at the same time, communicate effectively? Or how to bring farmers together?

MAPPING AGRICULTURE The fragmented reality of Carnia needs to be re-defined in order to establish its strengths and weaknesses, while valorizing local resources and making them become a reason to stay. One of the primary intentions were to use the information and materials collected through the interviews to map all the resources in Carnia. Map would be a useful tool to better visualize and place the local resources on the territory, linking them one each other with the existing realities. This will aim not only to make all hidden local realities visible but also to create a platform to connect farmers, as expressed directly by them.

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ATLAS OF FORGOTTEN TREES The involvement of children in the process of revaluation of what is there is fundamental. They represent the future generations, and they should be aware from an early age of what surrounds them. Thus, a group of a primary school children has been involved in a workshop in the woods aiming at knowing the most (un)familiar trees that represent the territory of Carnia. The workshop was structured with a walk in a forest adjacent to the school where some trees had pieces of paper hanged with their story related to the past and present of the territory. The children have been invited to collect what that tree represents using different tools. All the material collected has been gathered in a special book, an atlas of forgotten trees, made with and for children.

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CHILDREN DURING THE WORKSHOP INTENT ON DISCOVERING THE OAK TREE

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EVALUATION

PART 5 - What Next?

The path has been long and intricate made up of satisfactions and disappointments, often insurmountable limits, and twisted logics, leading to ask several times what the role of design is in such contexts. It has not been easy to immerse oneself in a reality that often does not understand the novelty and the different, much less trying to explain a new point of view. In this chapter some of the fundamental project’ steps and themes will be analyzed and evaluated. In this regard, the opening of an exhibition space in which to present the research has been a way to evaluate the project in the reality while understanding its limits and possibilities. But not everything went as initially expected and it is time to make some reflections on it.

VISITORS Firstly, the participation to the exhibition has been scarce, except for a group of people who have been actively involved in the project. This was probably caused by an intentionally lack of media interactions and other publicity, by the distance from the place where has been exhibit from the various villages, and probably by a general lack of interest in the topic. Furthermore, apparently, the cultural and social structure has almost definitively

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removed the Carnic people from everything that can be related to museums and exhibitions, and this is perhaps the most alarming cause of their disinterest. The words exhibition and museum do no longer make people move, and this is a reality to consider. The museum, the exhibition has become an attraction for tourists looking for something to do, regardless of their real interests. Even the archive word could turn people away, frightened by the boring idea of a normal archive made up of yellowed documents and contracts. Thus, giving importance to the word living in this case is fundamental, while giving them a clear definition of what living archives are and could become.

Besides, the choice of the place where to locate the archive is essential for the project and its success.

Not all places are suitable, the communities are different in values and interests, and it is fundamental to consider all these social nuances.

Finally, it is necessary to recreate the meeting spaces that are currently lacking in the area, without neglecting cultural and social aspects. The living archive is intended to be a new space for meeting and dialogue, and perhaps associating it with the usual museums and archives is a risk for the very success of the project.

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MUSEUMS In Carnia there are present almost thirty museum realities mostly ethnographic or strictly linked to the territory’s geology and history. Most of them are permanent exhibitions which are rarely improved or reorganized making them static and anachronistic. The museums with more affinity with Tiera Viva project are certainly the ethnographic ones which, however, are more focused on the rural past of Carnia. They are composed of numerous objects collected and cataloged, often saved from forgetfulness and ruin, which however do not represent the reality of the present. This is the first limit linked to the museum reality, its attachment to a past considered almost ideal and not corresponding with today's society often prevents visitors from reflecting on the contemporary world, thus forgetting the most urgent issues that afflict the territory, while the future is not even contemplated.

At the same time, its static asset it does not create opportunities for confrontation and dialogue except for the school realities that place workshops alongside the visit, not enticing people to return a second time. The limitation that the museum environment in Carnia represents today is therefore not suitable for hosting or being supported by a project that sets itself the goal of creating a stable

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place of aggregation where meeting and dialogue are the basis, even if they are closely related. The association with a museum could, therefore, lead people not to approach, to think of an environment considered too cultured or set, without feeling free to express themselves. Although not all museums are comparable and if there is an apparent revolution in the museum environment as a whole, reality in Carnia is different, stuck in an archaic concept of it.

PARTICIPATION Participation and co-design are two base elements of the contemporary conception of design.

They represent the way to interact and involve communities and people in general through the design process, bringing them to be active actors.

More and more institutions and various realities, not strictly linked to design, are approaching participatory processes to lead people to create their ideal environment and / or situation where to live. However, participation is not always the ideal method for all communities and contexts, often given by the difficulty encountered in organizing and carrying out participatory processes.

Communication and information are certainly of considerable importance, a community such as

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the one of Carnia, rarely called upon to decide its own destiny, will at first glance be skeptical about how it works and the result that could be obtained.

A community that is afraid of wasting precious time, which is often led to think that everything not related to work is useless, is difficult to involve and often leads to unsatisfactory results due to the spread negativity. At the same time this should not be a limit, the community must be aware of the power of participation, confrontation, union and being together, but an already too consolidated reality cannot be abruptly changed. Then, the designer should not be the only one with such an important load to carry on, they should accompany already established institutions and realities in order to give life to satisfying results, strengthening the credibility of the process itself. Regarding to this, the focus group organized to bring four farmers to discuss possible synergies was still a starting point.

It is not easy to involve people in general, much less farmers who are often reluctant. However, this has triggered something, and clarified even more the aim of the archive: to favor spontaneous or organized encounters, because this is the key to a change in Carnia, to bring people together for a common purpose.

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LIMITS Often designers are led to think they can change the world, revolutionizing and fighting the system with their creative methods and processes. This is not feasible, especially in a world made up of billions of rules and limits. Design can certainly engrave and enhance the culture and the social life, but it cannot change the inner structures which are composing the society, it has not the power to do so. In the focus group while farmers were calling for cooperation, they listed the different rules and limits imposed that do not allow them to cooperate freely, to do so would mean illegality, and few have the desire to risk so much. So, what is the real role of design? It certainly has the role of communicating, informing, and making people aware of the most disparate issues, often doing it in a very visual and tangible way with captivating objects or graphics, but is it enough? Of course not, to change a system there is the need for cooperation of the diverse figures which represent the society, from the politician to the economist, from the anthropologist to the farmer, but it is precisely this cooperation the most intricate and complex thing to set up. Until the designers are not considered important figures to be involved, their impact will never be radical and lasting.

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ECO-SOCIAL IMPACT Despite the various social and cultural limits, the project managed to bring a problem, that of depopulation and the act of remaining in marginal areas, and a possible solution, that of the reevaluation of what is present in the territory, under discussion. Bringing an element like terra, often associated with poverty and decline, to be the center of a discussion is certainly important and extremely urgent in order to be aware on the importance that the preservation of soil and lands have. Visitors have often been amazed to discover how much richness and biodiversity their territory is made up of, reading that long list of native seeds.

The awareness-raising work that the archive aims to do therefore has a direct eco-social impact on the community involved, which is invited to reflect on the potential of its territory bringing them to redefine their values and the sense of belonging towards it. Thus, bringing people to take care of their lands and safeguard the present biodiversity of the territory. Furthermore, making them active actors in the process both through the interviews and the various interactions in the archive makes them an integral part of the project that could not exist without people and their stories. People need to feel responsible for their actions and decisions,

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and they need to feel called to make them. At the same time, the archive is apparently the only place, apart from the institutional and government offices, where to talk about controversial issues such as coexistence and land splitting and giving a place and several voices to these issues is certainly a starting point to enhance a change even only in the way of discussing them.

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FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

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The work done so far is just the beginning. It is necessary to stabilize the project by giving it a permanent location and a specific purpose, while looking for possible allies and financing. Besides, it will be necessary to implement what done so far while involving as many people as possible evaluating the possible make and use of social media pages and / or a dedicated website. Then it will be necessary to understand how to organize the management that must be more autonomous and less binding as possible in order not to overload other realities. All this must guarantee stability and durability both in related events and in the various proposals, thus creating a small functioning reality in which people can immerse, entrust, and bond themselves.

ECOMUSEUM Living Archive or Ecomuseum? The Ecomuseums are defined by the Regional Law 10/2006 as “a museum form aimed at conserving, communicating and renewing the cultural identity of a community and consists of an integrated project for the protection and enhancement of a geographically, socially and economically homogeneous territory that produces and contains landscapes, natural resources, patrimonial, material and intangible

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elements”. They usually differ from the traditional museum for their strict bond to the territory where they are located and for the continuous involvement of the community and related realities present on the surroundings. In fact, they are often widespread in the whole area where the fixed structure is not binding and unique, but the attractions are scattered and connected throughout the territory in which they operate. This allows to avoid a massive concentration of people in a single place, bringing them to know different realities of the same territory, linked with a single thread. The Ecomuseum is very similar to the concept of the Living Archive because it combines museum, the collection and conservation of material, and participatory practices, becoming a real point of continuous active attraction and interaction. It would not be the only Ecomuseum in Carnia, but it could be the only one proposing initiative able to involve the whole territory on the theme of the land/soil with one or more stable bases located in different villages. The Ecomuseum is a path that can easily find approval from the municipalities involved, but it is not the only one. The archive can remain such, appearing itself as a new way of experiencing archives or it can change into something different and unique.

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PLACES Places matter. The location and the building can convey an important message, and this is a good opportunity to do and to consider. Firstly, the location(s) of the archive will be decentralized from the main village, already occupied with several attractions and initiatives. Decentralization is a way to bring attention to the real margins of Carnia, where depopulation and abandonment are experienced more intensely. If there are more places, imagining one per valley, they will all be marginal with respect to the center and they will be connected through the project itself. Moreover, this could be integrated with the three Civic Centers that are under construction in three different municipalities, thus taking advantage of existing realities and spaces already equipped. In addition, ideally, if it will be necessary to find a single and fixed location, abandoned or unused historic buildings will be considered priority over other types of buildings. This is not just a message aimed at those who prefer to demolish and rebuild rather than safeguard what is already there, but it would also be a way to bring the community to live in otherwise unknown and inaccessible places.

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ENCOUNTERS Once the project will be stabilized, located, and financed, it will be time for these encounters to take place. The archive has the aim on one hand to sensibilize people on these themes through dedicated events and workshops able to involve the wider community and all the generations. On the other, it will be the place where farmers and passionate could meet to share their knowledge and concerns and inspired by the Cattedre Ambulanti bring experts or enthusiasts from other regions and contexts to exchange different experiences. The archive will then create a synergic network among farmers, who are brought together to envision the future of the territory. Ideally the archive should be able to bring all these events on the whole territory, valleys and villages to ensure that everyone can be involved without limitations. It is therefore possible that a part of the archive will be itinerant, probably the Cramars chest of drawers which has a symbolic meaning and can be easily transported, thus becoming the object that unites the communities.

Meetings are a fundamental part of the archive, it is only by bringing people together that things can change, making them free to exchange their impressions with others, thus triggering a process of cooperation. The archive must therefore favor and

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encourage spontaneous encounters and thus become a focal point to trigger the much-desired change, involving different personalities, professionalism and realities already present in the area. At the same time, another important point would be the involvement of children and young people of the Carnia schools in activities dedicated to discovery the territory and its natural resources and, ideally, the creation of a summer school that can bring them into direct contact with agriculture, farmers, crafts, artisans and other realities and personalities of the area. The whole process should be able, then, to lead at least a part of the Carnic community to take a profound interest in the themes of the archive, strengthening the sense of belonging to one’s own land and bringing them on being active actors committed to shaping the present and future of Carnia beyond social, cultural and territorial limitations.

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CONCLUSIONS

It has been a long journey in the forgotten and, for many, unknown Carnia, that led to create new imaginaries on what it is and could become.

At the beginning, the lack of awareness and the stereotyped influence of the reluctant and irritating Carnics led to the concern of the encounter, not knowing what would have been beyond that front door. Gradually, village after village, encounter after encounter a new world has opened up, made of new hopes and possible narratives who found life in those who proudly believed in them, often going against everything and everyone. Through their stories clearly emerged how their strength blends in having chased their dreams inevitably linked to those places, wanting to stay there despite everything, as if elsewhere would have been surely easier. Their strong bond with the land, the land that raised or welcomed them, emerged in every story told and word pronounced, they belong to that land as much as that land belongs to them, their beings are now entangled in every corner of those places. Listening to their concerns, their passions and perspectives has led to feel the urge on creating something, something new, perhaps never seen that it is able to combine all these stories, as Maria Lai did with her blue ribbon linking her community to the mountain of Ulassai.

In this the essence of the project merges, wanting

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to be a way and a place to unite the community of Carnia to their own mountains. A place made by the community for the community, where they can discuss their own becoming and where to find a reason to stay. Tiera Viva is nothing more than the answer to all their questions and concerns, where their story is told and, in some way, handed down becoming examples and warnings for those who are still looking for a reason to stay. This will not bring an immediate solution or answer to their problems, it will not help them to easily cross the hard mountains or to overcome the limits imposed from above, but it is a beginning. A beginning for those who want to collaborate, tell their story, leave a testimony, or exchange seeds, talk about their visions, and they finally will find a place where to freely do it. A place dedicated to those who have already spent a lot for the territory and to those who still want to do. A place dedicated to those who have remained, to those who will arrive and to those who will find a reason to stay.

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Cover and pp. 12, 13, 14, 22, 28, 36, 48, 54, 68, 80, 94, 106, 122, 130,142, 150, 168, 200, 206, 218, 228, 236 - satellite images of Carnia https://irdat.regione.fvg.it/WebGIS/ fig. 1 p. 82 - https://www.facebook.com/F_able-A-Fictional-Archive-110404813687727/photos/161734691888072 fig. 2 p. 84 - https://www.marememoriaviva.it/spazi-ed-eventi/ fig. 3 p. 86 - https://sinkingandmelting.tumblr.com fig. 4 p. 88 - https://www.blackquantumfuturism.com fig. 5 p. 90 - https://stalkerlab.wixsite.com/zattera fig. 6 p. 92 - https://babaa.es/blog/inland-campo-adentro/ fig. 7 p. 97 - Categories fig. 8 p. 98, 99 - Stakeholder Map fig. 9 p. 101 - Interviews Map fig. 10 - 11 p. 113 - Wood https://irdat.regione.fvg.it/WebGIS/ fig. 12 p. 125 - Orso Francesco https://video.corriere.it/friuli-catturato-rilasciato-l-orso-francesco-pesa-189-chili-ed-color-beige/4b14741a-267c11e6-844b-1dd7d0858058 fig. 13 p. 125 - Land Fraction https://eaglefvg.regione.fvg.it/ fig. 14 p. 133 - Seeds Cases fig. 15 p. 136 - BaGAV fig. 16 p. 140, 141 - Farmer fig. 17 p. 171 - Archive Map fig. 18 p. 172 - Resources’ wall fig. 19 p. 176 - Wood Workshop fig. 20 p. 176 - Crama fig. 21 p. 178 - Poster from the Living Archive fig. 22 p. 180 - Sheets for Land Union fig. 23 p. 182 - Boxes for Land Giving fig. 24 p. 184 - Bosco come... labels fig. 25 p. 186 - New Rural Lexicon words pp. 190 - 199 - Pictures from the Tiera Viva - Carnia’s Living Archive fig. 26 p. 205 - Sella Chianzutan, Mostra Permanente del Marmo Rosso di Verzegnis fig. 27 p. 205 - Comeglians fig. 28 p. 211 - Farmers’ focus group fig. 29 p. 216, 217 - Workshop with children in the nearby woods pp. 240, 241 - Maria Lai, Legarsi alla Montagna https://www.artwort. com/2017/04/11/speciali/cult/maria-lai-legarsi-alla-montagna/

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I want to thank all those who let me enter their houses to told me their story and vision and the ones who contributed to the growth of the archive, without which the project would not be the same, thanks to Piero, Devis, Angela, Natalia, Michele, Adriano, Fiorindo, Pietro, Riccardo, Eliana, Lorenza, Renato, Agata, Erika, Arrigo, Roberto, Cristian, Matteo, Armida, Lucia, Firmino, Laura, Elena and Abramo. Thanks to those who believed in the project supporting and helping me from the beginning Franco, Luisa, Adriana, Siegfried, Bianca, Gianpaolo and to my supervisors Amy and Roberta. Finally, a special thanks for the support given to me along the way to Stefano, my family and my friends.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS