Borgofuturo
Borgofuturo, situated in Le Marche Region of Italy, stands as a dynamic cultural organisation with roots dating back to 2010. The organisation is the driving force behind a biennial Festival of Sustainability, designed to cultivate a new vision for the Italian inland and rural landscapes. Through strategic collaborations with local administrations, Borgofuturo has initiated a transformative process, initially witnessed in Ripe San Ginesio and subsequently unfolding across Fiastra Valley. The regeneration initiative catalyzed by Borgofuturo, "QUI Val di Fiastra", is at the heart of this evolution. This endeavor seeks to engage local communities actively, fostering a collective effort to shape a revitalized identity for the region.
Concurrently, Borgofuturo orchestrates the Social Camp, a non-formal residential space where individuals come together to ponder and exchange ideas on experimental themes related to ecology and sociability. Introducing a whimsical flair, in 2020 Borgofuturo launched the Maratonda —a spirited folklore competition traversing the valley's towns and landscapes, uniting communities in a festive journey.
Thirteen years since its inception, Borgofuturo continues to evolve, defying easy categorization. Attempts to encapsulate its essence in terms like environmental stewardship, bourgeois tradition, or diverse facets of sustainability fall short in capturing the project's nuanced spirit.
What sets Borgofuturo apart is its unique approach, aimed at involving the community in interaction with the local landscape. It leverages these deep-seated traditions as a springboard for innovation, exploring novel approaches to rural living. Far from merely preserving the past, Borgofuturo uses tradition as a launching point, pioneering new ways to inhabit and engage with rural territories. In this way, the project remains a living testament to the power of blending heritage with innovation—a dynamic force continually pushing boundaries and embracing change.
Role within RURACTIVE
Borgofuturo acts as one of the Dynamos within RURACTIVE, with specific expertise in cultural revitalisation, community building and participatory processes for rural regeneration and sustainable social innovation. The association operates at the territorial scale of the Fiastra Valley, Italy, a river basin of around 180 sqkm in an inner branch of the province of Macerata, and, interacting with both public and private actors, plays the role of community dynamiser and connector between the hamlets overlooking the valley.
Apart from tailoring its cultural offer to the youth living therein or coming from abroad during holidays, Borgofuturo targets other groups that presents vulnerabilities when comes to accessing cultural initiatives, such as elderly, women or children, and aims to address the need of other groups at risk of social exclusion such as migrants or people with disabilities.
Apart from RURACTIVE’s transversal goals of climate change mitigation and adaptation, social justice and inclusion and integration of biodiversity, spurred by the project, among the RDDs Borgofuturo aims to add the nature-based and cultural tourism and sustainable agri-food systems and ecosystem management to the culture and cultural innovation pursued through the festival, as new possible areas of exploration to achieve a sustainable rural regeneration of the valley.
