There is always a starting point

In autumn 2012, Nicola, Simona and Giovanni from Ex-Voto ran a series of meetings called Non Riservato as part of the Elita Sunday Park programme. One of the programs was dedicated to creative activities in Milan’s public spaces.
Also Focus, Podisti da Marte, Quarto Posto, Connecting Cultures, Milan Monkeys, Art Kitchen, Dedep, Milano Skateboarding and Zip took part in these meetings and we all started mapping the activities available in the area that through art, culture, sport, design and creativity can bring a shift in how public spaces are used and perceived.
On behalf of the City of Milan, advisor Luca Gibillini and council member Benelli, decided to support the mapping project and to build a place for dialogue among the people involved.
In this way, it began the planning of this participatory project that led to the construction of Non Riservato, which has been led by Nicola for its first two years.

 

About Non Riservato

Non Riservato is a productive network which was founded at the end of 2014 as a non- profit organization with social aims. Initially, 16 organisations participated in the process of project planning: Ex-Voto, De.de.p, Focus, Connecting Cultures, Giambellitaly, Asterisma, Garten, Tutamondo, ShareRadio, Parasite 2.0, Ira-C, Giardini in Transito, HC, Temporiuso.net, Architetti senza Frontiere and Podisti da Marte.
Non Riservato promotes innovation in public spaces through its members and the community. The organizations, cooperatives, professionals and companies involved make out of creativity their operation, a transformative urban and social tool.
The network brings together those who share its philosophy and aims, who want to experience new organizational and productive models, but also who have a common desire to take back their public spaces, through creativity and participatory processes.
The development of Non Riservato was made possible thanks to the contribution of Fondazione Cariplo and the partnership with the City of Milano. The project collaborates with the University of Milano Bicocca (Department of Sociology and Social Research) and the Politecnico of Milano (Department of Architecture and Urban Studies).

 

What does NR do?

Non Riservato creates projects that connect all the different capacities of its members: public art, urban games, urban sports, performance, street art, architecture and design. The projects have the common features of taking part in public spaces; they start processes of re-appropriation, creative involvement of participants, develop socialization and facilitate meetings.
Non Riservato acts as an incubator, mostly through announcements for development and prototyping in favour of new projects.
Non Riservato also involves external partners to carry out strategic projects. NR follows its strategic lines by working on a commission basis with the public and the private entities that need services or projects with a highly creative and social impact.

 

Achievements

  • 2014: birth of Non Riservato. After a call for bids of Fondazione Cariplo “Valorizzare le attività culturali come fattore di sviluppo delle aree urbane”, NR won a capital grant for a three-year project which covered 70% of the budget expected for the first 3-year period of activities.
  • 2015 – 2016: NR developed a training programme, which consisted of 7 modules and focused on techniques of cultural planning. This programme includes 15 external students as well as representatives of different organisations within the network.
    What emerged from this call for bids is six projects; two projects for the direct award, three strategic projects and two incubator projects. In addition, two new creative projects were developed based on the commission of external entities of the organisation.
    Through its projects, Non Riservato managed to get in touch with 10.000 people.
  • 2014 – 2016: the network grew, the number of organisations in the network increased from 16 to 23.
    7 of them were involved in different fields of the ordinary management activities of NR, 10 organizations took part in projects and prototypes through call for bids. R and 15 organizations contributed to one of the training courses. At least 60% of the whole network, attended one of training courses.
  • 2016: NR participated at the call for bids of urban crowdfunding of the city of Milano. NR won and collected 50.000 for the Gallab opening, which is a production laboratory and joinery in the district of Gallarate. They launched a second training program, which consists of 16 modules and a series of 6 lectures. It was focused on new models, activities and techniques for planning, production and communication of cultural and creative projects.
  • 2017: NR members became 25. New collaboration started with Fondazione Golgi Redaelli for  Milano Attraverso. In addicton, NR worked on the urban regeneration launching program of Lacittàintornointorno by Fondazione Cariplo into Adriano district. NR worked also in Corvetto district with Borderlight project. NR became partner of Step4 and Ciessevi for Do You Speak Global, an innovative project for global citizenship. In the partnership with Urban Gorillas of Nicosia (Ciprus), NR won Tandem Europe Bid, thank to they realized MiNi, in Milano e Nicosia. The same year, Borderlight project reached 8 municipality of Milano.
  • 2018: Non Riservato experience was one of the 3 best practices told by the report 2018 “#IoSonoCultura – l’Italia della qualità e della bellezza sfida la crisi”, made by  Fondazione Symbola and Unioncamere. This report is the only one in Italy that quantifies the weight of culture and creativity in the national economy every year.

  • 2019: NR became member of ENCC, European Network of Culturales Centres.Since the same year, Non Riservato has been collaborating with new projects in Milan: Monte Stella, Green Me Up and MANI.
    The organization won a call from the Municipality of Milan for the assignment of a space confiscated from crime. “Officine Creative Non Riservato” was created in Via Paisiello 5, a new cultural space center in Municipio 3.

NON RISERVATO 2019 – presentation

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