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@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ This year, we will travel to Senegal, engaging with diverse territories—from c
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Through encounters with artisans, collectives, and local initiatives, the trip will focus on material cultures, community infrastructures, and regenerative practices grounded in everyday resilience.
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![](/assets/images/2024-25/year-1/research-trip/water.jpg)
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![](/assets/images/2025-26/year-1/research-trip/senegal.jpg)
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## Why Senegal?
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We will follow materials and practices across territories—from metal and plastic to textile, clay, and wood—understanding how they are transformed through local knowledge systems and community infrastructures.
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### Some insights from Valle Camonica
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### Some insights from Senegal
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*Prehistory: Arte Rupestre and Italy’s First UNESCO Site*
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*Saint-Louis: Repair, reuse, and collective making*
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Valle Camonica is Italy’s first UNESCO site and hosts the world’s most extensive collection of rock art. Over 350,000 engravings have been discovered within a 30 km2 area, narrating stories of life, rituals, and ancient symbols. New engravings are uncovered each year, a sign of a past that remains vibrant.
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In Saint-Louis, we will encounter practices that transform everyday materials into shared infrastructures:
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![](/assets/images/2024-25/year-1/research-trip/unesco.jpeg)
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**Maisa**: sculptural work using recycled bicycle parts, exploring repair as an aesthetic and political act.
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*Hydroelectric Energy: The Power of Water from the Glacier to the Lake*
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**Hahatay** (@hahataygandiol): collective construction using earth and straw, rooted in community participation.
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Between the late 19th century and the 1980s, Valle Camonica developed one of Europe’s most significant hydroelectric networks. The energy generated by its streams and glaciers fueled the industrialization of the Po Valley. However, climate change now threatens this delicate balance.
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**Fishermen communities**: reuse of painted wood from fishing boats to create furniture for children in the neighborhood.
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![](/assets/images/2024-25/year-1/research-trip/musil.jpg)
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![](/assets/images/2025-26/year-1/research-trip/maisa.jpeg)
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*Textile: Weaving as a Story of Community*
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*Thiès: Recycling as infrastructure*
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In Monno, women keep alive the ancient art of weaving with manual looms, crafting traditional “pezzotti,” colorful rugs that embody the collective memory of the community. Agricultural tools like the flail, used for threshing rye, also form part of this cultural heritage.
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Proplast (@recuplast_officiel): visit to a plastic recycling plant, examining how waste becomes a resource and how local systems respond to global material flows.
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![](/assets/images/2024-25/year-1/research-trip/pezzotti.jpg)
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![](/assets/images/2025-26/year-1/research-trip/proplast.jpg)
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*Nature as Artistic Inspiration*
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*Edioungou (Casamance): Craft, care, and embodied knowledge*
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Valle Camonica is not only a cultural hub but also a natural space of immense beauty. Its mountains, glaciers, and forests offer an endless source of inspiration.
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In Casamance, we will work closely with women-led associations and artisan communities:
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![](/assets/images/2024-25/year-1/research-trip/adamello.jpg)
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**Loom weaving**: textile production using adapted looms by women with disabilities.
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## References
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**Batik**: traditional dyeing and wax-printing techniques.
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#### **Projects**
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**Basket weaving**: crafting objects from palm leaves as both livelihood and cultural expression.
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[Un Suono in Estinzione](https://www.unsuonoinestinzione.eu/en)
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**Pottery artisans**: clay extraction from the river and open-fire ceramic processes.
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[Neunau](https://www.neunau.org/)
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These practices reveal how craft operates as a form of autonomy, care, and knowledge transmission.
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![](/assets/images/2025-26/year-1/research-trip/poterie.jpg)
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*Dakar: Memory, history, and social infrastructures*
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Gorée Island: a site of memory and reflection on the history of the transatlantic slave trade.
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Sam Sam 3: visit to community schools (cooking, carpentry, agriculture) developed over 20 years by Sister Regina, engaging with education as a long-term social infrastructure in one of Dakar’s most vulnerable neighborhoods.
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![](/assets/images/2025-26/year-1/research-trip/samsam.jpg)
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## Approach
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Throughout the trip, students will be encouraged to:
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- Engage respectfully with local communities and contexts
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- Document processes through diverse media (photo, video, notes, mapping)
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- Reflect on their positionality as designers
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- Identify connections between material practices, social systems, and ecological conditions
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## Staff
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MDEF Team:
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- Saul Baeza
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- Ramón Llonch
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- Chiara Dall’Olio
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- Jessica Guy
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- Maria Vittoria Colombo
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Local collaborators and hosts:
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Artisans, collectives, and community leaders across Saint-Louis, Thiès, Casamance, and Dakar.

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