Nomi (short) - Sun, 28.12.2014

This second, short excursion looked at a part of Nomi. Trajectory: home - main square - castle - main square - home.

User-uploaded image: panorama-nomi-2.jpg

User-uploaded image: panorama-nomi-1.jpg

Doing these excursions alone is far from being as reflexive and insightful as walking, thinking and exchanging with someone. The more so if you're observing a landscape you've been familiar with since childhood. Looking and interpreting was hard this time.

Important observations:

On one hand the snow levels everything visually, on the other hand it makes land divisions and anthropic vs. "natural" portions of the landscape more visible.

The omnipresent noise of the motorway.

There are many parts of the village you don't usually walk -- and you're not supposed to walk -- if you're not a resident of that fraction. For example, walking into a road that leads to a new residential plot (there are a few of these) gives a feeling of trespassing.

Divisions between the old part of the village and added ones are pretty obvious.

There is still quite a bit of cultivated land inside the village, as it is the case of Besenello, but maybe less.

The presence of an ever decreasing number of traditional old, not renovated peasant houses inside the old part. These are going to be soon gone, as today municipalities encourage people to renovate old houses instead of building new ones on the fringes of the village, which 'erode the landscape'. Rightly so.

In terms of associations and organised activities reported on the public notice boards, Nomi seems to be much less in conversation with neighbouring villages and the overall number of projects seems small.

There are a number of courses organised to gain skills: language, IT, cooking, women crafts (textile). I think that these courses are actually going in the direction of augmenting people's resilience, maybe in an unconscious way... but why should someone want to teach or learn how to make felt? Of course, there is the cultural aspect (keep the traditional crafts alive), an economic one (all the courses must be paid for), the 'joy of making it with your own hands' factor. But maybe there is something there... Moreover, these courses, especially the ones on craft and cooking, have been going on for a good while, which says something on people's participation.

Public notice boards are distributed a bit all over the centre: new square, church, bell tower, library etc.

The former social wine co-operative is a huge space. Must visit it! Sandro says it won't open again.

Around it we can see the typical one-family multi-storey houses that use to be built from the '60s. This is typical stuff for all Northern Italy.

User-uploaded image: ex-cantina-sociale.jpg

User-uploaded image: panorama-nomi-3.jpg

Action points

visit space of former social wine co-op and find someone who can tell the whole story from a detached perspective

​​Important observations:

​​Action points

Important observations:

Action points