SEGNI PARTICOLARI
2025
Educational project by APAM – 2024/2025
The SEGNI PARTICOLARI project responds to APAM company’s need to raise awareness among current and future young users of the school service through an artistic performance that stimulates important reflections, both on the issue of prevention to vandalism phenomena and on the issues of ecology and environmental sustainability. SEGNI PARTICOLARI is configured as a provocative performative action that initiates a path of consciousness raising. Indeed, the goal is to stimulate a reflection that acts on the real motivations that drive the act of vandalism, asking young people not to stop at the superficial level of “everyone does it” and showing a real intent on the part of APAM to overcome the paternalistic judgment towards the younger generation.
Leaving a mark is an atavistic matter.
It is a desire for expression, it is a propitiatory rite, it is a request for help, it is a desire to bear witness to the world and posterity of one’s existence.
We need to reflect on the motivations that lead us to do so by defacing someone else’s property.
Unlike the “Particular Signs” that mark us, the vandal’s mark is anonymous, 2D on the surface of the seat.
Emptied of the intent to carry a message.
The project consists of two prevailing actions. The first is a direct experience of the class group on a bus, guided by the theatrical work of some performers. The second is the Open Day where students will be mandated to be engines of change to positively contaminate other classes and the citizenry.
PERFORMANCE – activities at school
Each class is escorted to a bus parked in front of the school and visibly vandalized. Three performer-characters await them on the vehicle: the CONTROLLER, a ferryman who takes care of the bus and the travelers; the WRITER, who depicts the instinctive and creative part of the human soul; and the PSYCHOLOGIST, who is entrusted with directing the intervention. Through coordinated theatrical moments and interactions with the young participants, a discussion arises highlighting the contradictory aspects of the issue and bringing to life a dialogue that messes up the cards, breaks stereotypes and attributes greater complexity to the issue. The talk will also engage participants in an active way, proposing concrete actions that move the thinking in a less theoretical way.
Also presented on this occasion is a contest among male and female students whose goal is to collect in video form concrete proposals for being agents of change, which will be presented during the Open Day.
OPEN DAY – May 16th 2025
The Open Day aims to open to classes the “behind the scenes” of APAM’s work and, through this openness, contribute to the formation of a sense of community: change starts with the individual but must be shared with everyone.
The day is divided into two macro-activities:
1-ARTISTIC CREATION ACTIVITY: A bus is be made available to the classes, who are asked to paint it to make it a real work of art, thus restoring meaning and constructive value to the graffiti.
2-RESTITUTION/REELABORATION OF SCHOOL PERFORMANCES: starting from the reconstruction of some moments of school performances, we intend to create further dialogue by adding the reflections collected from the students, creating a constantly developing script made up of moments of hilarity in which the students themselves are asked to play the part of characters.
These activities are complemented by a workshop corner in which to devise your own personal sign, and a bus in which an excerpt of the videos included in the contest are shown.
Credits
educational project by APAM spa
in collaboration with Teatro Magro and Questura di Mantova