FOR LOVE OF THE WORLD: Philosophy, Technology and Art Festival

The Situated Vocabulary San Vittore, developed as part of the Off Campus San Vittore activities, will participate in the second edition of FOR LOVE OF THE WORLD: Philosophy, Technology and Art Festival in Delft (TU Delft). This unique festival brings together philosophy, art, science and technology to explore new narratives about our relationship with others and with the world.

The project builds on a previous initiative developed in Milan's Nolo district by the POLIMI DESIS Lab, which explored the transformative power of words by creating a space for collective discussion. Within the San Vittore prison, the research group Imagis Lab, in collaboration with Virginia Tassinari, adapted and extended this format for the prison context.

More information on the festival website.

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The project

The prison system operates with institutionalized silences: there is minimal interaction between its three main pillars—security, education, and health—and even less between prison staff and prisoners. This lack of dialogue framed our project as an “impossible dialogue”.

Researchers engaged inmates, prison officers, operators, and volunteers in an ongoing process of co-creating shared and situated meanings (Haraway 1988). Rather than focusing solely on individual keywords, weworked on oppositional pairs exploring the liminal space, the margins (hooks 1994) where meanings blur. An approach particularly relevant in a prison setting, where concepts like oppressor and oppressed (Freire 2000), right and wrong intersect in multifaceted ways. Each word refers to its opposite, but also to the nuances of meaning in the space between. 

The keywords emerged from the exploration of San Vittore microcosm and selected by Young Adult detainees. They were later shared with the other prison actors. The collection of meanings happened through small groups meetings of one hour each and were conducted between November 2023 and December 2024, engaging 66 participants. 
The selected words and the phrases that compose them reveal the matrices of power (Foucault 2015), the tensions and negotiations inherent in prison life, highlighting the dynamic and queering nature of language. 

The four large panels, each displaying one of the project’s keywords appear fragmented and undefined. While the viewer approaches, it becomes clear that they are composed of meanings, sentences—fragments of conversations held within San Vittore prison — brought into dialogue with one another. 
The Vocabulary also seeks to bridge the gap between the prison and the society, and will be enriched with external perspectives, thus fostering a dialogue between worlds that rarely intersect. The contributions gathered from the outside will be brought back into San Vittore, to be shared not only with the initial participants but with a broader segment of the prison population.

Projectʼs Scientific Direction:

Francesca Piredda, Politecnico di Milano, Department of Design, Imagis Lab / Laboratorio carcere

Virginia Tassinari, TU Delft, Department of Human-Centered Design

Installation concept:

Chiara Ligi, Politecnico di Milano, Department of Design, Imagis Lab / Laboratorio carcere

Maria Maramotti, PhD student Politecnico di Milano, Department of Design, Polimi DESIS Lab / Laboratorio carcere

Virginia Tassinari, TU Delft, Department of Human-Centered Design

Francesca Piredda, Politecnico di Milano, Department of Design, Imagis Lab / Laboratorio carcere

Editing / Visual Design / Graphics:

Maria Maramotti, PhD student, Politecnico di Milano, Department of Design, Polimi DESIS Lab / Laboratorio carcere

Chiara Ligi, Researcher, Politecnico di Milano, Department of Design, Imagis Lab / Laboratorio carcere

With the help of:

Giorgia Borroni, Graphic designer

Elettra Panepinto, Politecnico di Milano, Department of Design, Imagis Lab / Laboratorio carcere

Aurora Chiaravalloti, Student, Politecnico di Milano, Department of Design, Imagis Lab / Laboratorio carcere