“Under the Moon II“. Children Draw Their Ideal City

An invitation for children to reflect, in a playful and interactive way, on the theme of the city. From June 18 to September 14, the Museo in Erba in Lugano presents “Sotto la luna II“, an original installation by the Spanish sculptor Miquel Navarro, an extraordinary tool for dialogue that allows participants of all ages and backgrounds to explore and share their imagination. "Each of us - explain the organizers - lives in an urban space that provokes discussion, that changes over time, that tells stories. Children are also involved in these dynamics, they observe and experience the changes first-hand. So why not invite them to dream and invent their own city?". This is how Sotto la luna II was born, a construction game made up of a thousand metal pieces on a large wooden surface, where the different elements can be freely combined and assembled to create an ideal or fantastic city. The result is an installation that, like those of Miquel Navarro, observed while standing, appears like a city seen from above, from the moon. The pieces available are like words that can be combined without rules or, better, according to the rules that are established from time to time and that are renewed thanks to the imagination and the "vocabulary" of every "budding" architect or urban planner. Playing with cubes, pyramids, cylinders and other shapes proposed by the artist, roads, bridges, factories, houses, squares, towers are created... of a city that evolves endlessly. Miquel Navarro, born in 1945, is a Spanish artist who "loves to imagine and build cities referring to his hometown, Valencia, or those he has known during his travels". His work allows us to understand that the idea we have of Paris, Berlin, Lugano or any other city is first and foremost a mental construction influenced by time, behavior, habits and social life. Precisely because our visions are multiple, Navarro never imposes a single point of view to discover his works. Paola Pioppi

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