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| The poster of the Workshop |
Milan is a city with a lack of vision. It is true that today,
after a long period of standstill, there are many initiatives, but they
only show a sort of managerial approach, which presents growing difficulties
and contradictions.
What is really lacking is a knowledge, not only of the actual
problems and of their solutions, but of a philosophy able to go beyond
the contingencies and to propose an ideal to the city.
The problems of Milan, traffic, pollution, chaotic development - like
every big city - would already be difficult to handle, without the emergence
of two major phenomena. The European Community and the immigration from
the Third World will lead to the explosion of a completely different city.
We would like it to be the civilised place of encounter and development
which it has always been and, furthermore, to attain a new dimension,
a new culture. But, is it possible?
On the other hand, the crisis of the city does not concern Milan alone.
It has a world wide and epochal dimension. Destruction, chaos, exponential
and dramatic acceleration of all phenomena surround us. Yet, these are
also the signs announcing a new world and we should proceed in the direction
they show, with courage and hope.
Alas, it is not only the economical and political world to fail to sense
the problem, but also art and other forms of culture.
What would the new functions of art be, were we to become
aware of this orientation?
It would definitely not be to descend in the void and in the confusion
which art so often shows. No, we should work at a deep renewal of man,
from which only a new art might arise.
Our idea is to unite all forces in a nucleus, in a common undertaking
with this very purpose.
It will be like a rampart or a trench dug in defence, facing the chaos
of the contemporary world. It will be also like digging the furrows in
which to deposit the seeds of a future civilisation
