This is a happening that I designed and curated at the Street Level Gallery for the final event of Urbanscapes, in Florence. The event was composed by four elements: the survey titled “Public Space!?”, four small talks by urban practitioners, an exhibition of provocative architectural collages by Casabelva and an interactive inflatable installation.

The main focus of the event was filling out the survey "Spazio pubblico!?, that is a contemporary version of the “Questionario di Prossemica Territoriale” written by UFO and published by Umberto Eco in “From the periphery of the empire”. The survey can become, according to Eco, a work of non-literature and at the same time an open work. During the event, the participants were engaged in small groups to debate about single questions, and in the end all the participants were involved in a collective debate about the most controversial questions. The final debate transformed the gallery into a public space, where participants confronted each other about fundamental questions regarding their daily lives in Florence. The survey is in fact site-specific and it changes for different places.

The moment of the survey was interrupted by short presentations of four different urban practitioners: Titti Maschietto and Patrizia Cammeo recounted the subversive activity of UFO during 1968, Olivia Gori presented the public designs of Ecòl and Jacopo Ammendola analysed the public space regulations in Florence. For the event I wrote Gated Urbanism Everything you wish you knew about urbanism* (*and have never been told).

At the end of the event two Urboeffimeri were inflated to bring all the participants in the street, to play sponteanuosly and collectively in the public space.

Ph: Luca Graziani