Milan 2012: Day 10

Today was Yi's final day at Domus & NABA. She had given a talk ('Urban Experiences: Macro, Micro and Digital') to graduate students of Domus the day before and today, the second year NABA students were going to present, along with third year students, their workshop projects.

The first to present were the second year students. There were several topics for the workshop and Yi's group was assigned the social aspect so she came up with a project called The Exchange Project. 7 groups of 3 to 4 students in her class were to come up with a way to get the public to give them something which the students will then use to make into a piece of art. Each group came up with very creative ideas and the students spent long hours on their projects. I know because we bumped into some of the students at the supermarket and on the street and they told us of pulling all-nighters. It was especially hard for those who had to work night shifts in restaurants.


This group went to the Duomo Sq and gave free photos for a smile from the bystanders.



I can't remember what this group gave but each participant had to paste a piece of tissue paper which slowly revealed a portrait of Leonardo Da Vinci. The gradating shades are due to the tissues being one, two and three ply. Clever.


I can't remember what this group gave too (my memory!) but what they got from participants was their secrets! I think this was a little bit controversial because some of the secrets were explicit.


Here's one of the milder secrets.


This group asked for your thumbprint when you take a piece of pasta.




This group gave away free cookies and coffee in exchange for your wish, written on a disposable cup.




This group pasted parts of alphabets on the wall that when viewed from a certain angle, a whole sentence/message can be read. I think there's a term for this but I've forgotten again what they call it. But, it was cool.I think this group was the one who used the Mona Lisa portrait for photos which theynthen used as alphabets.


Students beginning to fill the room for the presentation.


The Smiles Project, different from the other smiles project, was done by a group of Norwegian exchange students. Beautiful collage of smiling people!


This was most interesting to me, a design project that is also a project about awareness of the results of men's action on the environment. This group grew mung beans in between two pieces of plastic and painted words on the plastic. Each participant who smoked stubbed out the cigarette on the words, allowing the seeds to sprout through after a few days. I was most impressed when Yi told me that the idea was inspired by the book The Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. In my first year of uni, the same book took away my innocence of how prefect and safe this world is. I was most shocked and appalled by Carson's statement that nothing is spared of pesticides and insecticides; every mother's milk had some of these chemicals, especially DDT. You know that now of course but in the late 70s, most people were unaware of climate change, ozone-layer thinning, pollution, deforestation and all those environmental issues, and as a teenager, I was more into the latest music and fashion than anything serious. Read Silent Spring if you can get hold of it.'In nature, nothing exists alone' is a famous quote from Carson's book, the first book credited to launch awareness about the environment and the detrimental effects of pesticides.


This was the art work done by the 'Make A Wish' group. My wish, to go back to Italy next year, was among the wishes.

I was as proud of the students as Yi was because their work was creative, impressive and interesting. The students' presentation included an introduction to their project and then a short video clip from each group of the project. The 3rd year students' presentation were very impressive video clips of animation on various subjects, many of which were witty and humorous. After the presentation, the students and Yi celebrated at a nearby bar where the apperitivo was only 4 euros for Dumos/NABA students. I chose to go home and pack because we were leaving for Bologna and the Lake District the next day. We were both a little bit sad about leaving. I have met many of the students and they were so young, eager and promising. I also met a pretty girl from Sicily who came to the campus to meet Yi.


We came back from Bologna to find a present for Yi in our hotel. The students did Yi's portrait because "She always does other people's portraits but not her own, so we did one for her!" Beautifully done with thumbprints from bystanders and students in exchange for pasta!