Client Milan City Council / Ministry of Youth
Location Milan
Typology of project and activity Regional Marketing - Production
Breaking Walls is a multidisciplinary multimedia project for young people that celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The concept of the event - developed by The Round Table and MAC Group - is centered on transforming the historic occasion into a participative event that revolves around creativity and direct involvement. Breaking Walls continues to tour nationwide in Italy in 2010, following its 2008 launch in Milan.
Project goals:
- Inform the younger generations about an event at the heart of contemporary world history twenty years ago
- Send out the message that breaking down walls is still important today when it comes to actively defending human rights and freedoms.
The project consists of 3 main initiatives:
- The Street Art performance 'Breaking Walls', with live performances on large 3x2 m panels, many by famous young artists including Airone, El Gato Chimney, Erics, FlyCat, Mambo, Mr. Wany, KayOne, Raptuz, Rendo, Sea and Senso. These panels were displayed until 22 November and photographed for the Multimedia Gallery. The event was held in Via Mercanti, Milan, from 9 to 13 November.
- Photography exhibition entitled "The graffiti of the Berlin Wall" at the Loggia dei Mercanti, showing 50 photographs of the murals and graffiti on the west wall taken by Francesco and Alessandro Alacevich in 1987. The Multimedia Exhibition "BREAKING WALLS IN MILAN" at the Fondazione Matalon from 2 to 19 December told the story of the event in photographs by Daniele Barraco and TVNET video footage.
- The photography exhibition website: www.murodiberlino.alinari.it created especially by Alinari 24 Ore and linked to the Ministry for Youth website. This site presents over 300 historical images of the city of Berlin and Berlin Wall - evocative and moving images that convey what it was like to live "around the Wall". The site also invites visitors to send material of their own.
At the opening of the exhibition, the Minister for Youth, Giorgia Meloni, explained: "For almost 30 years, the grey Wall that divided Berlin was the canvas on which young artists from Berlin and around the world painted the desire for freedom of an entire generation. The exhibition here in Milan recreates the murals that were on the Berlin Wall in 1987. But the project doesn't end here. It's continuing on the Internet with the show "Breaking Walls" and its invitation to the movers and shakers in contemporary Street Art to dedicate a work to the many walls that still need to be broken down today".
The project was conceived and developed jointly by The Round Table, partner of MAC Group, and Alinari 24 Ore and the MAC Group with the national support of the Italian Ministry of Youth and Agency for Youth (Agenzia per i Giovani - ANG), and the local support of Milan City Council's Department for Culture and Milan Provincial Council's Department for Youth Policy. Other Italian local authorities, including Siena Provincial Council first and foremost, are adopting the project to launch a dialogue with their own publics of all ages.
