On 9 May 2024, the UNIMC Department of Economics and Law, leader of the project, hosted the final conference, together with guests, speakers and academics, with an audience present physically and online. After greetings from the scientific director of the project and Director of the Department, Elena Cedrola, from the Councilor of the municipality of Macerata for Culture and University Katiuscia Cassetta and from the Rector John McCourt, the project partners illustrated the objectives and results of the work of the past 30 months, through content creation, training course design, international mobility and virtuous forms of local collaboration. The guests illustrated examples of excellence, sustainability and resilience: Giambattista Tofoni, co-founder of Risorgimarche, the ethical and sustainable festival born following the 2016-2017 earthquakes to bring music to disaster-stricken landscapes, Emanuele Vietina, director of Luccacrea , organization of the well-known Lucca Comics festival, dedicated to comics, animation and video games, which in the last edition was affected by flooding, Rosaria Del Balzo Ruiti, representative of the Italian Red Cross, with various testimonies of initiatives implemented in recent years by CRI , always on the front line in emergencies and in supporting the territory. These interventions all had in common a strong attention to the element of listening, empathy with local subjects, the elimination of barriers and distances in the face of disasters, which represent an element of restart that must focus on the community and on the human factor. This was then followed by interventions on Dark Tourism with Marina Gigliotti of the University of Perugia, Eleonora Cutrini and Mara Cerquetti of the University of Macerata for the resilience of museum structures in the post-disaster and finally Davide di Marcoberardino of the Polytechnic University of Marche for the impacts of the disaster and the importance of prevention and education with the case of the 2022 Marche flood. An afternoon of ideas, experiences and difficulties that are an expression of the territories afflicted by disaster in order to set in motion the reconstruction of these destinations and allow not only their recovery, but their development in an innovative, ethical and sustainable way.
If you want to see the full video of the conference, click here