Through contributions from international guests across various disciplines, the event will delve into the complex map-power-action nexus in border areas, combining theoretical perspectives with technical and operative approaches, addressing maps as tools for critical reflection and agency. The seminar includes research and design experiences focused on the production of “thick descriptions” of border contexts, capable of generating knowledge useful for understanding and transforming them. By fostering a dialogue across cartographic practices, the seminar aims to engage participants in a discussion about the role of maps as knowledge producers capable of guiding transformation in border territories.
Re-Mapping Borderlands
Between Critical & Operative Approaches
March 26th, 2025
Building 3, Room 3.1.8, Politecnico di Milano
Streamed on Webex
Programme
10.30 — 12.30
Book Presentation
Welcome
Gennaro Postiglione – Vice-Director of DAStU
Valeria Fedeli – Coordinator of CRAFT, DAStU
Alice Buoli, Isabella Traeger & Valentina Rodani – DAStU
Lecture
Free the Map. From Atlas to Hermes: a New Cartography of Borders and Migration
(nai010 Publishers 2024)
Henk van Houtum – Professor of Political Geography and Geopolitics, Radboud University Nijmegen, NL
In dialogue with
Aubrey Toldi – Researcher & Adjunct Professor, DAStU
Salome Katamadze – PhD candidate in Urban Planning Design and Policy, DAStU
Luigi Farrauto – Founder of Studio 100km
14.30 — 17.30
Research Seminar
Introduction
Alice Buoli (DAStU), Ingrid Kofler (Free University of Bozen/Bolzano)
& Raffaella Coletti (CNR ISSIRFA)
Coordinators of the PRIN Project “Italian Borderscapes after 2020”
Round Table
Presentations by
Nishat Awan – Professor of Architecture & Visual Culture, University College London, UCL Urban Laboratory, UK
Vanessa Lacaille & Mounir Ayoub – Founders Le Laboratoire d’Architecture, CH
Jean Peyrony – Director of the Mission Opérationnelle Transfrontalière MOT, FR
Loris Servillo – Full Professor of Spatial Planning, Dipartimento Interateneo di Scienze, Progetto e Politiche del Territorio DIST – Director of Future Urban Legacy Lab (FULL), Politecnico di Torino, IT
Final reflections
Massimo Bricocoli – Director of DAStU and Full Professor in Urban Planning, DAStU
Laura Montedoro – Full Professor in Urban Design, DAStU
Gabriele Pasqui – Full Professor in Urban Planning, DAStU
Fabio Manfredini – MAUD LAB, DAStU
Alessandro Frigerio – Adjunct Professor in Urban Design, DAStU
This seminar is part of the research project funded by the EU – Next Generation EU – PRIN 2022 Call for proposals – D.D. No. 104, February 2, 2022 – M4 C2 Inv.1.1 Prot. No. 20225TN2R9 – Project title: “Italian Borderscapes after 2020. Mapping, Unfolding, and Re-Framing Border Territories in Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic” – CUP: D53D23010950006.
The event is co-funded by DAStU-Polimi’s CRAFT, the Competence Center on Anti-Fragile Territories, and is curated by Alice Buoli, Isabella Traeger & Valentina Rodani (DAStU, Polimi).
info
alice.buoli@polimi.it
isabella.traeger@polimi.it
valentina.rodani@polimi.it
image credit
‘Migration Map’, Đorđe Balmazović (2015). Source: Free the Map (2024), p. 99
