From June 9 to 20, researchers and artists will be in residence in Serrara Fontana (NA) for the in-depth mapping project “Studi sul qui” (Studies on the Here).
The traveling project “Studi sul Qui” (Studies on Here) arrives in Serrara Fontana. Launched in 2019, it is now in its fifth season, after a first edition in Valle d'Aosta and subsequent editions in small towns in various regions of Italy. The project involves a multidisciplinary group (researchers, artists, and professionals) from Italy and abroad who will spend a week creating a detailed map of the highest municipality on the island of Ischia. To construct the map, the people involved in the working group will proceed independently and as a group, observing the territory, conducting interviews, and meeting the population, in order to build a collective narrative about the present of Serrara.
The project is designed to be implemented in small towns. These places are generally underrepresented, struggle to make themselves heard, and find it difficult to generate narratives that transcend the local dimension. Often, the only existing narratives look backward, tending to emphasize historical dimensions, local identities, and traditions, with little regard for the present and even less for the future. Places like these are now included in the broad definition of Internal Areas, which, while useful in many ways, sometimes risks creating a homogenized vision that tends to hide differences and lump together territories that often have little in common.
In 2025, Studi sul Qui will reach its fifth season, which will take place in Serrara Fontana. Over the course of ten days (from June 9 to 20, 2025), a group of ten people involved in research, art, and various professions will work in residence in the area. Their goal will be to create a map that will include stories, images, representations, sounds, etc. The first results of the residency will be presented as “work in progress” on the evening of Thursday, June 19, at an event to which the entire community of Serrara Fontana will be invited. On that occasion, artists and researchers will share their first impressions.
The work will then continue in the coming months, during which the group will rework the material collected into a book dedicated to the initiative, supplemented by an online archive dedicated to all seasons of the project (www.studisulqui.it).
“Studi sul Qui” is a project conceived by Daniele Ietri, geographer and consultant, full professor at the Free University of Bolzano, and Eleonora Mastropietro, associate professor at the University of Milan.
The 2025 edition in Serrara Fontana is supported by the PRIN 2022 PNRR Project “Deep mapping crisis and transformation in non-metropolitan areas: representations, society, and territorial policies” supported by the Ministry of University and Research as part of Mission 4 “Education and Research,” Component 2, Investment 1.1. of the PNRR, funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.
The multidisciplinary working group consists of: Marco Boffi (social psychologist), Tobias Boos (geographer), Natalie Norma Fella (sound artist), Daniele Ietri (geographer and consultant), Peter Karl Kresl (economist), Paolo Martelli (filmmaker), Eleonora Mastropietro (documentary filmmaker and geographer), Daniela Salvucci (anthropologist), Alessio Zemoz (photographer), and Dorothy Louise Zinn (anthropologist).