Living business archives relating to people and regions
Research outlines the path to uniting past and present by applying new technologies to the memory of production
Memory that becomes present reality, the relevance of the past and a premise for a future based on the reuse and revitalisation of places that would otherwise be forgotten or not used to their full potential. The connection between business archives (and business memories) and today’s complexity is a tricky topic.
Daniela Anna Calabi, Benedetta Bellucci, Mario Bisson and Stefania Palmieri address this complex issue (and suggested solutions) in their work, ‘Memorie d’impresa, luoghi e culture: interfacce generative e dispositivi estesi per risignificare il made in Italy’ (Memories of business, places and cultures: generative interfaces and extended devices to give new meaning to Made in Italy), which is included in a comprehensive collection of studies on rethinking Made in Italy.
As explained at the beginning of the study, it is part of a broader collection of research on Made in Italy and seeks to propose a ‘paradigm of reconnection between industrial memories and actual places’, making the climate of the regions and their transformations perceptible through more contemporary narratives aided by new technologies. The aim is to integrate oral and written memories, documents and material and immaterial artefacts into networks of relational archives, i.e. collections that can communicate practical information about past industrial and business activity and current production and social life in the area to those who use them. This is a different and more complete way of narrating what is synthetically referred to as ‘Made in Italy’.
Simultaneity of sources provides news at several levels and they can be used in a variety of ways. The authors write that there is a strong relationship with the region, which is not ‘the platform on which the archive rests, but the content and container of memories’. The archive is therefore ‘the guiding device capable of reinterpreting regions and supply chains’. The region offers its productive, landscape and cultural complexity, which acquires meaning when it is explored, noted and communicated.
Business archives that come to life through new technologies and are able to convey their contents by forging a genuine connection with the places that hosted the activities whose memory they preserve. The authors also point out that, ‘by distancing itself from the standardisation of memories and roots, the archive becomes an active storyteller and an open process’. In other words, it provides the basis for the construction and sharing of a culture (including production) that is comprehensible and inclusive.
The research by Calabi, Bellucci, Bisson and Palmieri outlines – although not always with ease of understanding – a different way of seeing the links between the past and present of companies and regions.
Daniela Anna Calabi, Benedetta Bellucci, Mario Bisson, Stefania Palmieri
in Ripensare il Made in Italy Esperienze, questioni e progetti di una cultura circolare e sostenibile
edited by Andreas Sicklinger, Francesco Spampinato, Ines Tolic, Bologna University Press, 2025.
Research outlines the path to uniting past and present by applying new technologies to the memory of production
Memory that becomes present reality, the relevance of the past and a premise for a future based on the reuse and revitalisation of places that would otherwise be forgotten or not used to their full potential. The connection between business archives (and business memories) and today’s complexity is a tricky topic.
Daniela Anna Calabi, Benedetta Bellucci, Mario Bisson and Stefania Palmieri address this complex issue (and suggested solutions) in their work, ‘Memorie d’impresa, luoghi e culture: interfacce generative e dispositivi estesi per risignificare il made in Italy’ (Memories of business, places and cultures: generative interfaces and extended devices to give new meaning to Made in Italy), which is included in a comprehensive collection of studies on rethinking Made in Italy.
As explained at the beginning of the study, it is part of a broader collection of research on Made in Italy and seeks to propose a ‘paradigm of reconnection between industrial memories and actual places’, making the climate of the regions and their transformations perceptible through more contemporary narratives aided by new technologies. The aim is to integrate oral and written memories, documents and material and immaterial artefacts into networks of relational archives, i.e. collections that can communicate practical information about past industrial and business activity and current production and social life in the area to those who use them. This is a different and more complete way of narrating what is synthetically referred to as ‘Made in Italy’.
Simultaneity of sources provides news at several levels and they can be used in a variety of ways. The authors write that there is a strong relationship with the region, which is not ‘the platform on which the archive rests, but the content and container of memories’. The archive is therefore ‘the guiding device capable of reinterpreting regions and supply chains’. The region offers its productive, landscape and cultural complexity, which acquires meaning when it is explored, noted and communicated.
Business archives that come to life through new technologies and are able to convey their contents by forging a genuine connection with the places that hosted the activities whose memory they preserve. The authors also point out that, ‘by distancing itself from the standardisation of memories and roots, the archive becomes an active storyteller and an open process’. In other words, it provides the basis for the construction and sharing of a culture (including production) that is comprehensible and inclusive.
The research by Calabi, Bellucci, Bisson and Palmieri outlines – although not always with ease of understanding – a different way of seeing the links between the past and present of companies and regions.
Daniela Anna Calabi, Benedetta Bellucci, Mario Bisson, Stefania Palmieri
in Ripensare il Made in Italy Esperienze, questioni e progetti di una cultura circolare e sostenibile
edited by Andreas Sicklinger, Francesco Spampinato, Ines Tolic, Bologna University Press, 2025.