Intertale/Eutopia Stop 11: Vinschgau/Venosta

Süd-Tirol/Alto Adige is a fascinating place. Everything is bilingual here in German and Italian, due to its partition from Austria back in 1918.

So also our trip, organised by the Bolzano Art Week to the 1300+m high village of Stilfs/Stelvio, carved into high mountains. King Ortler with almost 4000m overlooks the place, where – with the help of a juicy EU grant - the people are transitioning from former occupations (copper and silver mining was the key industry here) and small-scale farming to new and alternative economies.

Supported by organisations like da - whose slogan is ‘wir schätzen was DA ist/we value what’s HERE’ – they are looking into new opportunities to care/kümmern for their place. Art and Culture plays a big role here next to infrastructure projects, like a much needed bus turning place. Local resident Roland took us to the various levels of the village, which he fondly calls a house. The square he calls the balcony, a good platform to start from (which we did with a BAW organised participatory performance). Vinschgau artist Clara Mair moved here recently and set up an artist space in her own ancient house. The kitchen is the studio, the exhibition and action room, where we watched a video made matching old photos with new images by their first resident Marie Capesius, who comes from Luxemburg.

da, based in the medieval village of Glurns, activates local farmers all over Vinschgau/Venosta to provide locally based alternatives to the extensive apple growing monoculture in the valley. An old workshop turned into a local café, goat cheese making, speck smoking, reviving ancient Pala-pears, are some of their many concerns to pump new opportunities into the rocky places.

700m further down, you find Schlanders/Silandro.  Here, Hannes Götsch and his BASIS team have repopulated the former Drusus-barracks, which hosted once up to 2500 Alpini soldiers in the huge 4 hectare areal. The BASIS base - with a state-of-the-art music venue, artist studios, co-working and workshop spaces – is a social activation hub that offers multiple opportunities for locals, visitors, artists and free-lancers. By mixing economic and social priorities, they try to show how different collaborative working forms could lead to a more inclusive and fair society with people and planet in mind. Geddes’ Place/Work/Folk mantra was helpful here in my workshop and following discussions with Hannes and his energetic team.

Ciao, Tschüß! See you before long, you wonderful Süd Tirol/Alto Adige