Thematic sites - Municipality of Milan

MEMI – Activate Memory is a project that intends to give new life to places of memory in Milan, actively involving the inhabitants in reappropriation actions aimed at sedimenting the places in the memory of the citizens who live in the city, to the point of constituting an irreducible element of identity .

Among MEMI's objectives:

• promote access and knowledge to a non-specialist public via a website;
• encourage the social dimension through active participation actions;
• facilitate the transmission of historical knowledge and memory through reappropriation experiences;
• encourage artists, performers, designers, associations and experts in the sector to use their techniques and languages ​​as a vehicle for memory and the transmission of values ​​and stories, to experiment with innovative devices for interacting with the public, and to relate to public space.

MEMES Call
The MEMI Fest was an event promoted with the contribution of City of Milan which took place, due to the impossibility of carrying it out on the occasion of Remembrance Day due to the restrictions due to the Covid-19 emergency, in March 2022.
It involved 3 artists/companies/associations in the discovery of some places of memory in Milan.

The places selected for the MEMI Fest represent different ways of processing and staging collective memory:

• Merchants' Lodge:

it is a symbol of Milanese anti-fascism in the city center: immediately after the liberation, spontaneously, the Milanese brought here photos of those killed in the Resistance to commemorate their sacrifice. Subsequently the place was recognized institutionally and even today, following the recent renovation and redevelopment works, it is possible to find the names of the fallen of the Resistance there. Right here, during the twenty-year period, the members of the "Aquile Stray" met clandestinely.

• Small Theatre:

what we know today as the Piccolo Teatro was, during the German occupation, the headquarters of the Command and from '44 of the fearsome Ettore Muti Autonomous Legion. A place of imprisonment and torture, which after the war Strehler, Grassi and Vinchi want to return to the city as a center of entertainment and above all of culture, with the idea that culture is something necessary for the citizens of Milan, therefore providing shows at popular prices.

• Central Station:

inaugurated in 1931, it presents itself as an example of fascist architecture, in which very eclectic styles and elements merge, all based on the scenographic and celebratory effect of the greatness of fascist Italy. Railway stations and carriages are a predominant element in the testimonies and documentation of the deportation. The inhuman conditions of the journeys to the concentration and extermination camps, told by the survivors, the carriages used, the same tracks that reach the gates of the camps, now in museums, make stations like Centrale places of memory, and among the most frequented daily basis. It is interesting to recognize the memory of deportation in these places through which thousands of people pass, more or less unaware.

• Piazzale Loreto:

during the Second World War the place became tragically known for two episodes: the massacre of August 1944 and the exposure of the corpses of the Duce and the fascist hierarchs of April 1945. Also to avenge the massacre, at the time of the insurrection the partisans decide to bring the bodies of Benito Mussolini and Claretta Petacci to the city and those of the 16 fascist leaders killed in Dongo on the same day.

MEMI Lab
The 3 companies selected were: Tiziana Vaccaro, Domestic Alchemy e On the steps of history.

1. MEMI Lab curated by Tiziana Vaccaro - all places: 
   The workshop with Tiziana Vaccaro involved 11 very young people aged 6 to 10. The aim of the workshop was to tell the history of the places covered by the festival, combining historical narration with the sharing of personal episodes, memories of the girls and boys and their families. The young people thus created a real Album of Memory, which was then shared with the families in a final event open to them.
2. Domestic Alchemy - Merchants' Lodge: 
   The free theater workshop was aimed at young people, adults and elderly people who wanted to tell some stories, anecdotes or memories related to the city of Milan and get involved with a free theater workshop on the theme of memory dedicated to citizenship and the history of the city . The material collected during the workshop became a sound installation featuring the citizens involved and which was staged in the Loggia dei Mercanti. The aim of this operation is an attempt to intercept and put back into action the history of the places of the city's memory with that of the people who pass through it every day.
    
3. In the footsteps of history - All places: 
   The MEMI Lab took the form of a social campaign which involved the interaction of citizens in a sort of quiz on the places of Memory in Milan, to test their knowledge. About a hundred citizens participated, with mostly incorrect answers which nevertheless were a pleasant opportunity to involve and raise awareness.

Overall, the MEMI Labs involved 200 citizens, with a wide variety of ages