La mappa dell'abbandono

La Mappa dell'Abbandono (The Map of Abandonment) is a research project aimed at creating awareness of the potential offered by abandoned spaces as an extraordinary resource for social, cultural and artistic projects.
Created in relation to the 2008 financial crisis as a response to the shortage of available spaces and the rhetoric of local politicians about the lack of money and alternative strategies for young professionals and third sector associations, the research began by mapping the Florentine territory and quickly expanded to the Tuscan territory. It is still expanding since the end of 2010.

In order to reach the purposes the project faces the topic mapping the territory, organizing meetings, conferences and workshops and using empty spaces for cultural/artistic initiatives.
The research examines four different main aspects: the territory governance, the reuse strategies, the historical memory and the soil consumption.
Among the many activities organized within the years, in 2013 it was presented RIUSA_Laboratorio Interdisciplinare sul Patrimonio Dismesso e Strategie di Riuso, in collaboration with Fondazione Architetti Firenze e Comune di Firenze. A four days international conference and workshop focused on the above mentioned topics.

The Senate of the Italian Republic, inspired by the project, has promoted an homonymous fact-finding survey during which the research was presented in Rome in November 2015. From its results, in 2019 a bill with the same name of the research was proposed.
Here the link.

The book, edited in 2018 in collaboration with Centro Di publishing house, ‘translates’ the digital project into a paper-based format, an artist’s guide structured on two reading levels: six itineraries accompany the reader through about 40 of the most interesting places that have been mapped, while the lightweight pages represent the artist’s notebook, with superimposed personal annotations and sketches that can be read simultaneosly with the printed text. 

The volume is the first of a series of twenty books about Italy (a volume for each region), entitled “XXI.Artists’ Guides”.

La Mappa dell'Abbandono
a project conceived by Giacomo Zaganelli