How many gestures is the Italian language made of?

GESTICOLANDO! is a digital and interactive archive of Italian gestures which aims to question the meaning of Italianness, bringing to light the differences that characterize our multicultural society.

The project is based on interaction with users and their sharing of gestures, to obtain an increasingly detailed snapshot of todays gestures in Italy.

The idea comes from reading Supplemento al dizionario italiano, a dictionary on Italian gestures, created by Bruno Munari and currently published by Corraini Editore.

The purpose of the project is to check whether “Italian” gestures are still represented by the gestures described by Munari, or if they have evolved and have within them multiple variations and nuances. To do this, I took the city of Bolzano as a case study.

The project consists of two media, a website and an Instagram page, and is based on the gestures collected through the interviews. The collected gestures are represented by GIFs made during the interviews or sent in by users.

In conclusion, GESTICOLANDO! can be summarized through three keywords. GESTICOLANDO! is inclusive, because it challenges the concept of Italianness by opening it up to a more multicultural vision; it is an interactive project, because it relies on interaction with people to collect data; and finally, emotional, because it seeks to convey the beauty of multiculturalism.