Libera Scuola del Giardino - The Free Garden School
Parco Arte Vivente, Turin, Italy
July 2016

A school that reveals and renews the relationships between consumption and the project garden of Parco Arte Vivente (PAV) - PAV is the by Piero Gilardi founded artspace in a former industrial area in Turin, Italy.


Wapke Feenstra, Andrea Caretto and Raffaella Spagna.
Curators: Orietta Brombin and Marco Scotini.
With Attività Educative e Formative (AEF).

Parco Arte Vivente (PAV)

To start the school Wapke Feenstra, with Andrea Caretto and Raffaella Spagna, cultivated the social and natural resources in and around the PAV garden. In a collective process with young artists, curators and educators, this garden school co-created a new and specific collective identity of PAV and their environment. Processing local and plant-based products during a series of workshops, the ‘Libera Scuola del Giardino’ – The Free Garden School - was started in 2015 and the first year was used to set up and design the infrastructure. The FGS was from summer 2016 open to the wider education program of PAV and led by Orietta Brombin.

The garden of Libera Scuola del Giardino is situated in the 23,500 m2 squared park of Parco Arte Vivente and the inner circle of the garden consists of monastery-based herb fields designed with input by the landscape architect Gianluca Cosmacini. The plants from the fields are processed into beauty and kitchen products and sold in a mobile market stall; PAV POP UP. In addition to plant-based products like herbal oil, flower seeds, and urban honey, artefacts for promotion of the project like bags, t-shirts, wrapping paper, postcards and tattoos are for sale.

NETWORK
The garden school is a work in line with the activities of the International Village Shop, an international network focused on local products that was launched by Myvillages in 2007. On invitation and curated by Marco Scotini and Orietta Brombin we set up the Libera Scuola del Giardino, with the aim to create a platform for exchange of local products and spread these in the network of PAV. Through the cultivation of products from its natural and local resources the garden expanded beyond its borders by trade and representation strategies. These products were sold in the collectively built and designed Pav Pop Up shop. The project included garden design, gardening, and product processing in a series of workshops.

To buy the products from Libera Scuola del Giardino visit PAV.
The school was developed as a follow up after the “Grow it yourself” exhibition and PAV POP UP was presented at Parco Arte Vivente in Summer 2016. With the “School” Wapke Feenstra continued the theme of cultivating the natural surroundings of PAV within the activities of Attività Educative e Formative (AEF), the educational and training department of PAV.

Participants workshops 2015-2016: Andrea Alauria, Mohsen Baghernejad Moghanjooghi, Valentina Bassetti, Valentina Bonomonte, Martina Campione, Marialuisa Camurati, Tommaso Cannataro, Stefania Crobe, Valeria Dardano, Francesca Doro, Katia Facciolo, Andrea Famà, Angelo Antonio Ferrante, Ermanno Lattini, Elena Laureri, Martina Maiorano, Daniela Maronetto, Gabriele Nicola, Chiara Pigoni, Giovanna Porfido, Noel Ratini, Elisabetta Reali, Carolina Rossi Casanovas, Leardo Sciacoviello, Maria Sessa, Alessandro Weber.

Partners 2015-2016: Gruppo CTC (Comunità Temporanea di Costruzione); Urbees, apicoltura urbana, Torino; Collettivo OltreModo | ASL TO1 | Coop. La Rondine | Coop. Frassati | Ass. Il Bandolo Onlus; Cooperativa Paradigma, Torino; Cooperativa La Luna Blu, Moncalieri (TO); Istituto Superiore Pininfarina, Moncalieri (TO)

This website documents the work of Myvillages from 2003 to 2023.

To find out where Myvillages is working at the moment visit ruralschoolofeconomics.info and villageplay.net.
All our project websites are listed at “about us”.

Contact us at info@myvillages.org