Rethinking Local Heritage Through Graphics in Mantua and Sabbioneta. Images, Maps, Fanzines for Narrating a UNESCO Site with Students During School-Work Internship

This contribution illustrates MOBARTECH a research project funded by the European Union, the Lombardy Region and the Government, FSR, which aims at promoting cultural heritage, through research and shared actions with business, through the development of knowledge for innovative projects. Within this frame a kit aimed for young visitors and city users, was researched, designed and finally realized with the help of teenager students during the week of school-work program of the Institute of Tourism Pitentino in Mantua. During these process particular attention was paid to the use of drawings, graphics, images, photographs and creation of maps. Here the action of drawing or approaching to images was a necessary step marking various stages of a participatory process leading to the creation of the kit. Using graphic signs in different forms became a means of researching, knowing, synthesizing, exploring, documenting, designing and it assumed an essential value to give shape to an articulated and complex vision of knowledge.