Arcadia Italy
Soundwalks with new Citizens
Date
December 11, 2019
In the Museum Practices course, students experienced an uncommon class taking place in specific neighborhoods of Rome.
The aim was to see Rome from the perspective of refugees, migrants or asylum seekers who become in this storytelling lab the Invisible Guides taking the listener-explorer on a soundwalk through the city.
Stories, music, soundscapes and directions are transmitted through headphones, creating an immersive and emotional experience. Here is what one of our students says in a blog post about this very special tour:
"I learned how to notice my surroundings in a new way through the medium of storytelling. As the tour begins, the audience is asked to look around them in order to determine a native Italian from a tourist or immigrant. The narrator explains in Nigeria, the wealth discrepancy is very visible making it easy to determine who is who. Only the elite can afford luxury goods in Nigeria. This makes it easy to categorize people. Yet, unrecognized to me, such is not the same in Italy. In Italy there is such a high saturation of people who have luxury goods and those who do not that it makes no sense to categorize people by such.
As we unravel the mysteries and complexities of decision making within museums, my favorite subtopic is to explore the differences between private and public collections. The ownership is not what concerns me; rather, what I find most interesting is the idea that knowledge, or an experience, is being kept hidden from others. I like to explore the ways that an artwork changes when publicly versus privately kept. To hide a masterpiece from being viewed by others seems odd to me as I believe that art and knowledge are powerful and should be shared with as many people as possible. Sharing these experiences and knowledge only adds to society, nothing is being taken away. The tour uses locations that are both famous and hidden in tandem with migrant stories in order to further the understanding of the monuments and lives of the migrants... The beautiful mesh of migrant stories and ancient monuments creates a new medium to explore the public pieces. These public pieces are particularly interesting to me as their sheer exposure allows them to be interpreted in infinite ways. How this changes when the piece becomes private is astonishing. Often, the idea of public commodities is associated with lower quality, and yet, in terms of art, being public does not equate to lower quality. Think of the Trevi Fountain; the ability to share this experience, not only with those you know, but with every person who has ever been to the monument is important and powerful. The shared experience is enough to unify two strangers. We use terms like “public” and “private” to separate ourselves but the beauty of art is that it can be interpreted in so many ways, and yet the fluidity of the art being private versus public can change this meaning vastly.
As I return to the United States, I have to question my surroundings more. I must look at the discrepancies around me and create my own definition of value. As students studying abroad, we must remind ourselves of the luxuries we have in order to travel. Each label we place changes the way we interpret the things around us. I challenge you to question your surroundings and lean in to how it makes you feel, question it when it seems wrong, and be more observant".