Maranola Digital Memories. Narrating Multimedia Archives as Didactic Outcomes for Communicating the Memories and Traditions of the Town of Maranola

The article describes the objectives, the approach, and the results of an experimental didactic experience that engaged design and performing arts students in recovering and restoring the memories of the medieval town of Maranola. The teaching’s main objective was to enhance the memories of the place by designing a narrating multimedia archive that tells and transmits feelings, emotions, and values and strengthens and communicates the collective identity through interactive and multimedia narrative mechanisms. The use of visual storytelling and multimedia communication languages and tools becomes a means to build an emotional and educational physical experience and a digital archive with artistic and historical value since it evokes, narrates, and reconstructs the local reality and allows users to participate in it. Students’ path adds a design component to the historiographical dimension of the traditional archives and contributes to the spread of knowledge of the community, its traditions, and of Maranola’s artistic richness. In fact, since 2011, the town has hosted five editions of the Environmental Art Festival Seminaria Sogninterra. The database of the works created during the past editions of the festival provided inspiration and suggestions for the students. The developed projects exploit interactive and audiovisual tools, work with forms ranging from physical to virtual, and create narratives that metaphorically explore the traditions and memories of the place.