POST-COLONIA

POST-COLONIA – Festival of architecture and imaginaries in transition

Riappropriazioni

From 6 to 13 April 2025, POST-COLONIA | Festival of Architectures and Imaginaries in Transition took place in the former Torre Fiat in Marina di Massa. The international and interdisciplinary event invited reflection on the physical and symbolic legacy of former seaside colonies through a week of exhibitions, installations, artistic performances, workshops, walks, and public discussions, conceived to physically and conceptually reinhabit these voids.

The exhibition Riappropriazioni explores the role of collectives in transforming physical spaces and their associated symbolic meanings, highlighting spatial practices of “decolonization” at the architectural, urban, and landscape scales. The term refers here to processes through which local communities reclaim spaces—material or immaterial—removing them from logics of exclusion and control. The exhibition journey moves through experiences of self-management, grassroots movements, and democratic practices that challenge established hierarchies, bringing visibility to a multitude of everyday actions that surround us but are not always noticed or recognized.

To reappropriate means to return to what belongs to us: to reclaim physical and symbolic spaces that have been taken away, enclosed, or alienated. It means recomposing fragmented identities, regaining decision-making autonomy, and recovering dreams that once seemed lost. The exhibition Riappropriazioni celebrates the transformative power of collectives in redefining the meaning and form of physical spaces and, through them, the symbolic spaces connected to them. An “occupied” lake in the heart of Rome, a fast-food chain outlet transformed into a neighborhood solidarity restaurant, the largest European festival of self-published comics, an experiment in resisting gentrification in the center of Barcelona… Through four thematic sections – signs, occupations, resistances, landscapes – the exhibition-installation guides visitors through twelve experiences in which the reappropriation of space intertwines with the rediscovery of new ways of inhabiting and living collectively.