BORGO DI SAN PIETRO ITALY BY MARIO PISANI

BOSCO COLTO - CAMPUS THINKING WITH ANIMALS - 9/7 - 9/8/2026

photo © Piermanuele Sberni

Bosco di Santo Pietro in southeast Sicily extends over a vast cork oak grove lined with very old footpaths, clearings and traces of farmland. Its ecosystem is at risk due to fires, desertification and depopulation. It is also a living archive of knowledge, materials, and species. Not far from the woodlands lies Borgo di Santo Pietro, an old village dating back to the end of the 19^th century thaT has gradually been abandoned but still has some houses and communal areas. Since 2022, BOSCO COLTO has been held ever since 2022 and is organised by Makrame APS in partnership with TEArch. It is focused on terrestrial architecture, strategies of coexistence and care for at-risk landscapes in southern Italy (UniCT PRIN PNRR Research Unit) under the scientific supervision of Marco Navarra (NOWA, SDS architecture UniCT, Makrame), Dario Felice (Analogique, Makrame), Beatrice Fontana, and Antonio Scarponi (Institute for Spatial Thinking).

ErranteArchitetture - Aula Errante - photo © Piermanuele Sberni

This is a transdisciplinary project combining architecture, ecology, visual arts and vernacular practices in a process of collective construction. Platforms, pavilions, spatial devices and micro-architectures form an experimental park open to students, graduates, and young professionals, where a call, open until 25^th May, 2026, proposes a way of working on the territory for constructive practices, ecological research and pedagogical methods based on self-building and careful attention to places.

NOWA e Analogique, Incroci e sinestesie. Foto © Piermanuele Sberni

This year is focused on Thinking with Animals and poses the question 'How does a project change if we learn to think from the bottom up on the shared terrain of the living?' Bruno Latour described our age as a period of a 'new climatic regime' in which environmental disturbances are reshaping our perception of dwelling. Thinking with Animals does not imitate the non-human world, it takes a decentred perspective, observing the forest from inside to generate knowledge deriving from contact, reciprocity and the impossibility of thinking like some Other in the relationship between humans and domestic or stray animals. “Animal thinking means accepting that projects do not precede places, they allow themselves to be transformed by them.” Structures will be designed to be presences capable of welcoming humans and non-humans, interpreting the forest as an active interlocutor, not as a backdrop. The programme brings together people working at the confines of architecture, ecology, the visual arts and territorial research.

They are coordinated by Yoshiharu Tsukamoto (Atelier Bow‑Wow, Tokyo) for the Satoyama project I Sicily focused on rural landscape strategies and the construction of a farm pavilion for Casa BOSCO COLTO. The artists Domenico Mangano and Marieke van Rooy (Amsterdam) working with the curator Salvatore Lacagnina are developing a workshop encompassing ceramics, sound art and participatory performance that will begin with a project entitled Sound, Ceramics and Communities, sponsored by the Italian Council 14 (2025) program of the Directorate General for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture. Food Hack Lab (San Sebastian) works on the Critical Zone of Bosco di Santo Pietro, building a territorial observatory and devices for reading the ecological processes of soil, water and air. Fabio Ciaravella (Palermo), an independent researcher on architecture, society and art, is carrying out a joint research project entitled Ordine delle Querce involving both social archaeology and storytelling. The researcher and artist Maja Avnat (Berlin) is leading a workshop called, focused on experimentation with sound practices and environmental recordings as means of listening and accessing more-than-human forms of knowledge.

The architecture and urban planning cooperative Tout Terrain, in partnership with Nicolas Depoutot (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Nancy), is holding a workshop entitled Attention au chien!, a practical research project on the physical and symbolic presence of stray dogs in Santo Pietro, combining territorial inquiry, collective visionary thinking and potential site-specific installations. Marco Navarra (NOWA, Makrame), Dario Felice (Analogique, Makrame), Beatrice Fontana, and Antonio Scarponi (Institute for Spatial Thinking) will coordinate the Scientific Directorate’s special workshop on the construction of Twinpalace focused on the reassembly of historical architectural artefacts from Caltagirone Town Hall and experimentation into new trans-species configurations for Casa BOSCO COLTO. Mario Pisani