Transumanza design e territori: un’osmosi tra ambiente, artefatto, tradizione

Transhumance is one of the most ancient human activities that involves the crossing of physical, environmental, cultural, social borders with rites and traditions. Looking at transhumance becomes an opportunity to rethink the relationship between man and nature while respecting the environment in which he lives and the possible synergies between territory, culture and history. Transhumance is the topic of the CamBioVIA research project, composed by the Regione Liguria as the lead partner, together with the region of Tuscany, Sardinia and Corsica, forming a multidisciplinary team of zootechnicians, bursars, designers, communities, breeders, biologists and historians. Among the activities to disseminate, enhance and raise awareness of research is the project to set up an exhibition ‘On the Traces of Transhumance’ that will open on September 16, 2020 in the spaces of the State Archives of Genova. The exhibition will host artefacts belonging to the past and kept in private collections or ethnological museum together with contemporary design concepts focused on the theme of transhumance and elaborated within the Product Design course of the Master’s Degree in Product Design and the Event of the University of Genova. The paper frames the current context of reference in which the research work is placed, and then deepens the themes, methodology on which the main concepts of the exhibition have been produced. The research and the exhibition layout aim to show the wide material inventory of finds produced by the immaterial practice of transhumance, to create a rich variety of suggestions to rethink interesting projects of synergy between territory, traditions, biodiversity. The projects are the result of a reflection that starts from historical matrices to be actualized in urgent issues such as nomadism, travel, development of internal areas, land, shelters, animal and plant products, tradition, craftsmanship, communities, identity, rituals, folklore. The territory becomes the co-author of a narrative that is worth exploring through the project, seen as an activator of stories.