Milan, Italy
Mission Title: Transumanza during the Salone del Mobile
Mission By: Pippi Kid, Marco Malizia
Mission Finished on Date: 17-04-2008
SCRIPT
- The Zona Tortona has played itself up as a laboratory for ideas and a site for major innovation in design.
- Discover how it has evolved with and for the Salone del Mobile. Find out how vital this weeklong event is in the neighborhood,
- Intervene creatively with the the movement and life of the neighborhood. Disrupt it to discover its shape.
- Document how the people move and shift for the Salone, both at day and night. Get plenty good shots of the huge crowds and the designer interventions in the city.
- Visit the area both walking and using public transportation. Are services for public efficient? Are there more cabs than buses?
TRAVEL BAG
Where does the neighborhood end and the people begin?
In reading over the press release for the Zona Tortona, one quickly gets the feeling of how important the Salone del Mobile is to the area. The rhetoric mixes superiority with the subtle fear of someone who's not sure if they're keeping up with the Jones'. Milan, for years a capital of art and design, has got now its competitors.
Though the Salone del Mobile originated in 1960 and is now one of the most important fairs of its kind, the Zona Tortona only became a site for the Salone almost ten years ago. Nevertheless it has quickly achieved to be one of the main ones. In its last edition, the Zona Tortona hosted more than 180 exhibitors and over 80,000 visitors. The numbers say little about the astounding reality on the street. During the Salone the crush of people becomes worse than sheepherding (something the Italians dubbed “transumanza”) in Via Tortona, normally a quiet street of small factories, retail shops, and apartment buildings.
Chiara Fumai (Pippi Kid)
Visual artist based in Milan and Switzerland, also known as DJ/Producer.
www.moustachewoman.com
William Bottin
Musician and sound designer based in Venice.
www.williambottin.com
