It's been an intense, alive and memorable day.
The fact of publicly projecting the video-diary SAUDE! at the Embassy of Brazil I think was an important step under several perspectives.
In the first place what was publicly presented was a team-work, the result of months of preparation, and the result of a relationship between 'Rome' and 'São Francisco' that went far from weakening over time.It stands as a proof the directness and freshness of the chat via Skype with São Francisco, which was attended by both the Secretaria and the liderança.We watched the video simultaneously and after we connected again to exchange impressions and questions.
We lived very intense moments, you could tell from the words coming from São Paulo that they understood the depth and the potential of the gesture we elaborated together. That the simple fact of wearing T-shirts with red hearts while walking through the spaces of São Francisco and drinking medicina casera gathered in a circle in the area where they wish to see the hospital built, was a gesture that would have repercussions in history of São Francisco, is something the liderança had understood immediately. What has left me amazed and a little surprised is that apparently something has already started, a few months later, to move. Differently from the very long waiting to which we are accustomed here in Italy, they have told us of a meeting which took place the day before with the Secretaria da Saude, about the construction of the hospital in São Francisco.
It seems that a dialogue on this subject has thus begun.
This made me think that really that simple gesture can have significant repercussions.
It makes me think of a creative, direct, explicit way to give shape and impetus to urban transformation, capable of building spaces starting from the needs of their inhabitants. Not only that, perhaps on occasions like this the richness that an international dialogue on the transformations of the informal city has triggered becomes clear. An external, though aware and sensitive, look can catalyse urban processes otherwise lengthy and fragmented, stimulating responses starting from the clear wording of questions, even aesthetically, thinking the city as the place where the voice of those who inhabit it becomes visible, gains a body and potentially reaching to shake important mechanisms of production of the city itself.
The strength of the bond that united and continues to join me, Francesco, Laura and Daniele to the liderança and to the Eastern area team of the Secretaria de Habitação is clearly perceived by the words of Felinto, Rosi, Vava' Guigui, and all the others who were present to Skype chat.
We ended the conversation with promises to organise another public screening of SAUDE!, this time by the CEU in São Francisco, where the whole community of Jardim SF will be gathered, and re-connect with us via Skype, so in order to participate from Rome. It would be great to organize a simultaneous screening in Metropoliz, to make more strong and mutual the bond and the dialogue between the two communities.
We keep on listening and move on.
There's still a long way to go!
Azzurra Muzzonigro.