From Thursday 6 February, free openings begin at Caffarri

"Un Salto in Via Gioia": until May, four first Thursdays of the month, from 4 to 6 p.m., it will be possible to enter to see the exhibits and get to know the realities present: Remida, PER,                                                   Scintillae and the PhD Reggio Childhood Studies

        The invitation to all citizens and first and foremost to the inhabitants of Santa Croce

Starting on the afternoon of Thursday 6 February and every first Thursday of the month until May, the workplaces and research laboratories of Fondazione Reggio Children with Remida, the Creative Recycling Centre, PER Play Explore Research, sparkle-play and learning in the digital age, and the Reggio Childhood Studies PhD will be open to the public for free visits. 

The initiative ‘Un Salto in via Gioia’, on Thursdays 6 February, 6 March, 3 April and 8 May, from 4 to 6 p.m., aims to respond to the interest aroused by the opening of the spaces entrusted to Fondazione Reggio Children - Centro Loris Malaguzzi - ETS, in the former Mangimificio and former Falegnameria delle Reggiane, which have been recovered and refurbished to host various projects and research laboratories on quality education, including the Remida centre.

The invitation is addressed to children, children, families, and citizens of all ages and from the entire city, first and foremost the neighbourhood, the people living in the Santa Croce neighbourhood, who will be welcomed by the staff of Fondazione Reggio Children. There will be an opportunity to visit these spaces and immerse themselves in explorations and creative activities with workshops to discover games, matter, digital, and books saved by Remida.

Entering this wing of the Caffarri, one encounters a lounge area for reception, spaces equipped as small analogue and digital workshops, rooms set up for seminars and conferences, the area dedicated to Remida materials and experiences, an immersive place for projections and readings surrounded by a blue curtain, and the study and research area for doctoral and post-doctoral students. The set-up was supervised by Fondazione Reggio Children according to the design by MPA Architects and Total Tool Srl with Studio Bunker for the environmental graphics, financed by The LEGO Foundation.

The research areas of the projects intersect, including play and learning, listening to nature and the ecological and sustainable dimension, the relationship between architecture and educational environments, creativity and the digital, and relationships of reciprocity and interdependence in communities and solidarity.

Right from the yellow entrance, beyond the façade painted by David Tremlett on Via Gioia 4 promoted by the Palazzo Magnani Foundation, and throughout the Caffarri's open space, one can encounter the materials and materials of Remida, the Creative Recycling Centre, a project of the Schools and Infant-toddler Centres of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, Iren and the  Fondazione Reggio Children , which has its new headquarters here, reached by crossing the entire Caffarri's nave. Here it researches, trains and distributes waste materials that are transformed into a resource for educational, ethical and social activities, an experience that began in 1996 in the Reggio Emilia schools and infant-toddler centres to be shared with many realities all over the world.

And all over the world the PER Play Explore Research project is touring, which has already made stops in Reggio Emilia, Sao Paulo in Brazil and Johannesburg in South Africa, a project of the Reggio Children Foundation with The LEGO Foundation, aimed at research on play and learning. At Caffarri it finds its incubation phase, and interfaces with scintilla-play and learning in the digital age, in the space that explores through analogue and digital tools the questions of children.

Dominating these spaces from above, in their study room on the first floor, are the PhD students of Reggio Childhood Studies - from Early Childhood to Lifelong Learning, a research doctorate of the Department of Education and Human Sciences of Unimore and with the Fondazione Reggio Children  as industrial partner. In addition to carrying out their own research, which spans the most diverse fields of knowledge, the scholars interact with various projects of the Fondazione Reggio Children.

These free-entry opportunities will continue in the future and look in particular at the relationship with the realities of the Santa Croce district, in which the complex is located. With Rigenerazioni, a project with the Cesvi Foundation and Intesa Sanpaolo and the Reggio Children Foundation, Remida has involved a network of realities active in the Santa Croce neighbourhood on the themes of social sustainability, also as a way of approaching the Caffarri. Scintillae, in turn, began last spring to discover Caffarri with children from the neighbourhood's schools to discover its identity and potential together with four primary school classes: Pascoli (V A), Boiardo (IV B), Gavasseto (IV A), Don Lorenzo Milani (II C), with Scuola Diffusa, a project of the Municipality coordinated by Officina Educativa.

It should be noted that the Caffarri spaces themselves will be open together with the Malaguzzi International Centre on Sunday 23 February from 3 to 6 p.m. for Loris Malaguzzi's birthday, with special activities as part of the ‘Bambini al Centro’ programme.

To participate in the events of 6 and 23 February it is advisable to register on Eventbrite: 

https://bit.ly/aperturaCaffarri

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