The Cultunauti and Sustainable Values

People can stay together in many ways: one of these is surely a community within an association. Italo Calvino wrote in his book Il barone rampante (The Baron in the Trees): “Associations make mankind stronger, emphasizing the individual’s best qualities and giving a joy that one rarely has remaining on his own. Associations let you see how many people are honest, good-hearted and capable and deserve positive things (instead, while living on his own, one often sees the hidden face of the people, the one for which we must always be on guard and keep a hand on the sword)”.
Therefore, there are dimensions in which individuals can become persons and the connections and the relationships between them becomes visible and substantial. They reproduce a community in scale: the sense of cooperation and coexistence has the capability of creating bonds. This harmony that regulates the coexistence of the community originates and finds its roots in the territory: the matrix for its development derives from the local dimension. This awareness develops most of all from the knowledge of a shared culture: an expression of a common interest and a shared identity capable of giving meaning to the community itself. In fact, “culture is the human force which discovers the needs of a change and gives consciousness to the world.” (Elio Vittorini, Diario in pubblico, Diary in Public).
When culture is performed in places and becomes linked to a specific area, this area does not only play the role of a frame, but also of a genuine expression of the territory. It is impossible to separate the local dimension from its soul: culture. In fact, a virtuous circle leads us from one to the other.
The evolution of civilization always develops from the individual, from the micro dimension, then it involves to the macro dimension: the important changes of humanity originate from the small scale.
From theory to practice, from form to content: the Cultunauti are a concrete and tangible expression of this associative reality strictly connected to its territory. This association was founded in 2011 in Solarolo (birthplace of Laura Pausini) with President Monica Signani and Vice President Carlo Bonfiglioli, and originated in the local library during the ”Tea Time” meetings and discussions addressed to people who shared the passion for reading.
Their commitment is aimed at the organization of exhibitions and presentation of books of importance for the community, public readings for adults, children and at the local retirement homes for elderly people. Finally it focuses its attention on the collective awareness of intangible values and the exploration of the places of historical and artistic resonance in the territory.
The Cultunauti are one of the concrete examples highlighting the relationship with the territory and creating a deep awareness aiming at the realization of humanity and the renewal of the community. We appreciated to know this reality as it summarizes all the concepts and values ​​that are at the basis of the idea of sustainability itself. The only model we truly think can be  possible for us today.