Curated by Andrea Avveduto, Letizia Bardazzi, Alessandra Convertini, Wael Farouq, Jacopo Fusi, Giacomo Gentile, Cristina Giuliani, Giovanni Lucertini, Gianni Mereghetti, Giorgio Paolucci, Elena Puncioni, Margherita Tassi, with a group of universi

 

There are more than one million young people that were born in Italy to immigrant parents or arrived here as children and have grown up in what has become their land.

815 thousand go to school, 9% of the total student population, coming from 190 countries, and among them, six out of ten are not “immigrants” but are born here, more than a third going to primary school. But the “new generations” are not reducible to the world of school: the exhibit will introduce a gallery of characters that operate in the world of work, from professions, sports, music, and art. All take into account their family traditions and those of the land from which they originated, and at the same time they measure themselves to the culture, values, and lifestyle of the place which they feel as “their” Country. They offer a point of encounter between different worlds, often very far away, that, as a result of globalization and migratory fluxes, have become neighbors and are integrating more and more.

The protagonists of the exhibit will contend with the title of the Meeting this year – “All that you have, bequeathed you by your father, earn it in order to possess it” – and with some questions that go to the roots of their human adventure, and that at the same time challenge Italian society: what allows tradition to be a living reality and not only a sterile memory of the past? In shaping the identity of these people, what role do they play, the family, the schools, and the other environments in which these people grow up and express themselves? What values, what proposals for life do these children find in the West that they have left their countries in search of a better life?

Among the themes confronted, there will also be the issue of citizenship reform, which the Senate is discussing during these days, and the challenge of terrorism, that often sees young protagonists of the second generation. The exhibit will introduce witnesses and judgements, keeping in mind the words of Pope Francis during his recent journey to Egypt: “The only alternative to the civility of encounter is the incivility of conflict; there is no other way. To counter effectively the barbarity of those who foment hatred and violence, we need to accompany young people, helping them on the path to maturity and teaching them to respond to the incendiary logic of evil by patiently working for the growth of goodness”.

The exhibit is suggested as an open space, made of video-stories, panels, and occasions for encounter with an area in which, every day, two moments of witness and dialogue take place in order to deepen the topics with some of the protagonists “recounted” in the exhibit.

From September, the exhibit will available in its traveling version, both because of theme of the exhibit and the instruments with which it will be realized, lending itself to its application in schools, universities, group and educative environments, cultural centers, parishes, etc. To facilitate its diffusion, both a catalog in paper format and a dvd will be made, containing the presented videos in the exhibit and other materials.

The exhibit is promoted on Facebook on the page: www.facebook.com/MostraNuoveGenerazioni/