Cagliari

Making sense of new places means moving around, exploring and experiencing movement. Chiara moves us into the city, with her friends are guides, making new meanings through shared connections to new places.

Cities are also in themselves mosaics, as people connect places through their own movements. Letizia reminds us of this in her short comic, taking in disparate places as different pearls in a necklace, carefully strung together through experience.

Cristina brings the city together through shared experience of place, holding a helpful hand that passes on tales of places, carefully put together like the pieces of a puzzle.

Giulia reminds us that moving about in a city, and making sense of the geographical layout of it, is also something we do alone, as we step off into the unknown to build up our own urban experience. Technologies can replace the helpful hand of a stranger, as we slowly build new knowledge of place and gain confidence.

Making sense of the urban fabric of place is also a source of joy, as we move our bodies, mapping out new experiences. Rebecca’s simple tale of finding her way shares this pleasure of making sense of a new city, gaining confidence and adding new places to our personal repertoires.

Delia shares her daily routine in this way, adding places and times but remaining rooted in certain places imbued with meaning. Our lives and communities may change, and sometimes it is hard to remember quite why we chose to inhabit certain places, but memories are also embodied, inscribed in our own personal biographies. The fabric of the city may appear collective, but our own experience of it is deeply unique.

Sara reminds us in a colourful manner of these daily routines inscribed in space, as the times and places we inhabit and move through shape our lives. We move through the city at different times, mapping out our own personal geographies in the city, shaping the spaces we traverse, and being shaped by them in return.

The urban mosaic is built up, block by block.