Palermo

Palermo - the interest in dealing with this city arose, as with so many, through a visit to Manifesta that was held in Palermo in 2018. For the first time in the city, Manifesta made it possible for me as to visit many otherwise inaccessible spaces in the city. Palazzi, churches, gardens and courtyards were opened and activated for visitors and residents. All the exhibitions, workshops, events and performances reinforced the image of an extremely differentiated and diverse city.

The dense and varied narrative of the city of Palermo, created in the past, can be traced back to its central location in the Mediterranean Sea on the threshold from Europe to North Africa. Since the Middle Ages, a unique Arab-Byzantine-Norman symbiosis in cityscape and culture has developed, shaped by changing European and Arab occupiers. Damaged at the end of the Second World War, the subsequent massive expansion of the city, the so-called „Sacco di Palermo", enforced and supported by Mafia structures greatly changed the cityscape. The neglected old quarters of the city became places of arrival for migrants of the most diverse cultures, meanwhile the quickly built outer quarters showed structural deficiencies and the Mafia entangled itself deeply.

One has the impression that the fight against the Mafia through politics and civil courage generated a special climate in the city from the 1990s onwards. Although it is a hotspot in the current refugee crisis, there is an extraordinary welcome culture and an almost defiant attitude in an otherwise right-wing characterized ltaly, to see the challenges posed to the city as a potential and an opportunity to develop further Palermo's communities.

This was at least the impression we got when we (27 bachelor and master students) visited the city in April 2019. For 10 days we met various people who showed us their perspective on the city in walks and conversations: Maria Schwarz, professor at the University of Vienna but living in Sicily, Mauro Filippi from the office PUSH, which initiates and accompanies participative urban development processes, Renzo Lecardane, professor at the University of Palermo and his students, who impressively presented their commitment to the city, Luca Cinquemani from the art collective FARE ALA, who works on the city and its fascist and colonialist heritage, Fausto Melluso from the initiative Arci Porco Rossa, who is a new member of the city administration and now engaged in urban development policy, Tanino Bonifacio, the culture assessor of Gibellina, who is trying to reactivate Gibellina Nuova, and many more.

The students were free to choose the topics they wanted to work on. They explored ruins, gardens, markets, wastelands, neighborhoods, restaurants, bars and people. In the following weeks, eleven very different projects were created back in Vienna, working in a wide variety of scales and locations.

As external observers of the city of Palermo, we could only fail in our efforts to have an impact on Palermo's urban development - but we hope to be able to provide thought provoking impulses and new approaches for discussion through our unconscious view from the outside.

- Max Utech