How many voices can urban woodlands have?

Since the postwar years, the loss of natural areas to urbanization, industrialization, and intensive agriculture have led to the standardisation of the Italian landscape in the Emilia-Romagna region. In addition to making the territory highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, the features of such a landscape are also weakening the region inhabitants’ bond with more-than-human life. Shifting to new relationships of belonging and mutuality with unplanned living ecosystems, such as urban woodlands, is therefore crucial. Being left to evolve spontaneously, these areas profoundly differ from ornamental or highly managed green spaces. Voci del Bosco focuses on urban woodlands as fundamental presences in urban environments, exploring their socio-cultural potential for reconnecting local dwellers of different social backgrounds and age-range with the land. Closely examining and engaging with an urban woodland (Bosco della Cappuccina) in the city of Carpi, near Modena in Italy, the project initiates a collective path involving local associations and groups. Through knowledge dissemination, new shared narratives and co-designed initiatives, the project aims at building a growing network of individuals, groups, and urban woodlands, rooted in reciprocal care, emotional connection and sense of belonging. Ultimately, Voci del Bosco envisions the creation of an urban community of which humans and urban woodlands are equally part of, one that accounts for our belonging to nature and land.