Project data
Funding Entity: Regione Toscana
Call: Assegni di ricerca 2021
Coordinator: UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI SIENA
UNISI Principal Investigator: Francesca Bianchi
Department: Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences
Start date: 16 June 2022 – End date: 15 June 20244
Description
The Project GEM, the acronym of “Genius loci, memoria e l’identità: Realizzare un presidio culturale nel Parco del Pionta”, is a community-driven heritage project towards realization of a cultural presidio. The overarching goal of the project is to valorise and interpret the existing architectural, landscape and natural heritage, tangible and intangible values of this cultural place together with the existing historical archive of former psychiatric hospital of Arezzo through collective caring practices. The project also seeks to guarantee the continuity of this valorisation process that highlight the memory and importance of this cultural place, which, in the long term, promotes accessibility and guarantees a permanent existence of a local community as a ‘cultural presidio’ to care the uncared parts of Pionta.
The research equipe with a complementary expertise in different areas of social science is comprised Prof. Francesca Bianchi -Associated professor in sociology specialized in creative methods in social research and urban social regeneration process-, Prof. Carlo Orefice -Associated Professor in pedagogy, he focuses on theories and methods of educational sciences-, Prof. Sebastiano Roberto -Associated Professor in Architectural History, he works in regenerative architectures and urban spaces-, Prof. Mario Giampaolo -Associated Professor in didactic with an expertise in digital educational tools-, Dr. Gozde Yildiz -Architect and Research Fellow of the project GEM, her research interests focus on genius loci and heritage-driven urban regeneration processes-. The project has three partners, namely, Design Institute (ISIA) of Florence, Florence-based theatre collective – Chille de la balanza -, and Province of Arezzo.
This project is co-funded by the European Development and Cohesion Fund and is part of Giovanisì, the project promoted by Regione Toscana to help young people become independent