The Project
Build
your own city by participating in a potentially infinite game.
Invent
houses, theatres, museums, airports, schools, amusement parks… Everything can be created with simple game pieces, imagination and manual skills!
Socialize
the city is where relationships take place. Each citizen has a neighbour to know, with whom he can start engaging in a constructive path together.
Building
The Città Infinita is a construction game performance that uses industry residues to create and recreate urban places.
Polished and gentle to the touch wooden items are the “bricks” to build the city, in different shapes and sizes. Combining these pieces with children’s imagination, everything can be designed: their own houses, major public works and, above all, roads connecting participants, allowing meeting and idea exchanges between them, giving life to a potentially infinite game.
The great diversity of pieces has an important role in the construction game, increasing the possible combinations, feeding fantasy and imagination in the city’s design.
Each group of participants shape their own Città Infinita using the universal language of creativity and manual skills, developing a unique project.
Cooperation
Città Infinita is a participatory performance, a collective work that dynamically takes its own form through cooperation among all the participants: children, youth and adults, working together to build a city in accordance with everyone’s aspirations and skills.
The interaction between adults and children generates exciting synergies. The creativity of children supported by the skills of adults, can result in visual impact architectural projects and art installations.
Città Infinita is a new way of living and interacting with others, based on the intuition of each participant and the trust in the ability of each to engage in the game without focusing on the result.
Sustainability
Città Infinita is a sustainable game. Building materials are exclusively industrial residues. Special semi-worked and unfinished items leave free interpretation to the participants.
The materials that have lost their commercial value gain new meanings within the context of the cultural and creative performance.
Throughout the game, the residues become a resource, live a new life with new functionalities. For children and youth, naturally inclined to experimentation, the contact with objects becomes an empathetic and emotional experience. They change the meaning of objects giving them a new interpretation, one they imagine themselves.
A simple game can teach a different way of caring for the environment and building the future, especially to the young generation.
The start of the game
This creative work begins with an introduction to the game.
- The construction of the city begins with the most intimate and familiar place: the house. Thus, participants discover materials of the game and begin to live the city. To build their own houses they can choose a limited number of pieces. This rule helps the participants in the exploration phase of materials, leading them to a careful selection.
- Then, participants come together to build roads, bridges, tunnels and highways. Everyone has a neighbour to know, with whom he can share a territory and begin to design the city. Together they can decide what public works to undertake: a park, a cinema, a theater, a school, a hospital. In this second step of the game participants can use all materials they need.
At this stage of the game, the city becomes a place of relationships, exchange and dialogue. The cooperation between the residents gradually transform the city.
The stage
The stage is simple and basic, but its visual impact is very strong. The performance’s play area is surrounded by the construction material: from 500 to 1000 kg of small “bricks” placed inside boxes.
An essential element are the “City Lights”: a long LED lights tube drawing up smooth curves and providing a warm space.
Moving clouds are projected on the walls of the space, symbolizing the infinite sky of the city.
The performance’s atmosphere is enriched with a musical background that isolates the outside noise and facilitates concentration of participants.
All these aesthetic elements help to create a relaxed and constructive atmosphere, defined by children as magical.
History
Since 2008, Città infinita has built hundreds of cities, each with its own identity. During various experiences, the performance has transformed people and places thanks to its values and positive energies. It has taken place in museums, schools, festivals and European projects and thousands of families, children and young people participated.
In Italy, where the first Città infinita was created by Mao Fusina, the performance was hosted in many prestigious places such as the Triennale Design Museum and the Museo del ‘900 (Milan), the Bimpa (children’s museum of Palermo), the Festival della Creatività (Florence), the Tocati Festival (Verona), and many others.
In 2014 the performance came to Spain thanks to the work of Roberta Genova. Città infinita has started to build relationships in the province of Barcelona, played by hundreds of children and their families, spreading its principles and values, including in schools and universities. In 2016, Einav began the construction of Città infinita project in London (England).
Città infinita continues growing with the desire to meet new people ready to get involved.
Città Infinita values and educational principles
- Affirmation of the right to play.
- Presenting the idea of sustainability to the new generation through the use and reuse of industrial residues.
- Stimulating the collective dialogue on issues related to the city and active citizenship, with a special focus on children and youth.
- The concrete participation of all: there is no specific age to play in Città infinita.
- Promoting constructive and cooperative games leading to dialogue and exchange of knowledge and skills.
