By Rebecca Ceccatelli. Photos: Sara Sassi / Okno studio. Courtesy: Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi.
It may be hard to believe for some, but the paper publishing industry has recently demonstrated a strong intent to revive itself after being overshadowed by online media. Just think of the magazines and art publications created by the students at our school during the academic year. They strongly believe in the power of paper and ink to convey meaningful messages. While this was happening at school, something interesting was also taking place around the same area on Via Tornabuoni; at Palazzo Strozzi, they were creating a book. A magazine. In all its aspects.
And who else could the organisers have approached for support in its construction if not the Tuscan art academies? Students from the Arts Curating and Multimedia Arts courses were involved, and today, we are excited to present Microcosmo 2024. Are you curious about what a magazine backed by a cultural institution like this one in Florence might include? We may not have a definitive answer, but we can certainly tell you what our magazine contains! Scroll with us through its sections.
Microcosmo 2024: a playful, diaristic approach to art with Plurals
Blue geometric shapes with rounded edges welcome readers to the opening pages of Microcosmo with unusual fancy fonts. Plurals represents a multitude of personalities brought together by chance to work on a project committed to making Palazzo Strozzi a stimulating and familiar place where young minds can expand, explore, and feel at ease. Plurals is an annual project developed by the Institution – more specifically by Martino Margheri and Azzurra Simoncini – in collaboration with two Tuscan high schools as a PCTO project (Pathways for Transversal Skills and Orientation) to support the students’ final year of studies.
Faced with the variety of contemporary artistic expressions at Palazzo Strozzi between 2023 and 2024, a group of fourteen teenagers had the opportunity to encounter new stimuli, broadening their perspectives to the often unexplored realms within our minds towards the world of art exhibitions. By experimenting with new relational techniques and cultural approaches, they experienced growth outside the school context. Eventually, this was narrated on paper through a diary format.
The opening pages of Microcosmo describe this growth process, from the creation of “Senza Adulti” (Without Adults), guided tours for young people at the Palazzo organised by the students, to the development of a visit kit for Anselm Kiefer’s exhibition designed for a young audience to engage in the visit and avoid boredom.
However, before any cultural growth, teenagers’ lives diverged outside the Renaissance walls where they met periodically, prompting the need for their stories to be told. I enrolled in driving school marked the beginning of a journey through a succession of dates, including stories of eighteenth birthday parties, hair dyeing, and seemingly irrelevant everyday life occurrences. These moments are emphasised by illustrations created by the students with the support of artist Matteo Giuntini during a workshop, where the colours and emotions experienced were expressed in collages and drawings that captured the essence of a teenage dream.
Getting deeper: what is a Memory Container?
Where is the memory we create in our lives stored? Where does it linger, become embedded, sometimes blocked or forgotten, but still leaving behind traces of existence and passage? Memory Container is a project undertaken by the higher art academies in Tuscany to explore the theme of memory in art. Developed in conjunction with Anselm Kiefer’s exhibition Angeli Caduti at Palazzo Strozzi, the students took the master’s work as a starting point of reflection. The artist himself considers the memory of objects to be his artistic essence by exposing his artworks, from paintings to sculptures, to various external forces, transforming them into true containers of the memories of their experiences.
From this reflection and careful research, the students’ reinterpreted the theme with the goal of ensuring that each exhibition remains relevant even after it closes. They aimed to help the exhibition survive oblivion by transforming it into a book that showcases artworks and essays. This transformation was made possible through conversations with artists such as Marco Mazzoni and Aleksandar Duravcevic, whose contributions were essential in capturing the sense of memory encapsulated within the pages of the book. Indeed, their contribution proved to be essential.
The font then becomes more formal as you start exploring the second division of Microcosmo, serifs are added to the letters, and the chapters of Memory Containers begin. Without predicting it or even requesting it, our student productions naturally grouped themselves into thematic subcategories. During the magazine’s layout, these categories almost demanded to be represented separately, leading to a division into five sections, each addressing a different aspect of memory persistence: Memorie familiari (Family Memories), Ricordi Alterati (Altered Memories), Dispositivi di Memoria (Memory Devices), Tradizioni e simboli (Traditions and Symbols) e Raccolte (Collections).
As a result, the artists were able to express their unique vision on a common theme, giving a personal touch to each aspect by creating a succession of images and photographs combined with descriptive words. They also dedicated entire yellow pages to three art critics from our school within the section that best suited the text they produced on the theme. The topics ranged from hair that retains memories within the community of Kazakhstan to images trapped in digital photographic devices.
The multitude within Microcosmo 2024
The contents of Microcosmo 2024 are indeed a multitude. It embodies an entire universe of ideas that needed to materialise through the action of ink printed on a physical object like a sheet of paper. Throughout history, we have always relied on writing things down in order to remember them for posterity. We certainly did not want to forget about ourselves and our ideas during this project, but rather to survive the darkness of oblivion by creating something valuable and stimulating for all those who may want to learn about us in the future.
