Let's start with you. Who is Altera?

Monica: Altera is a social promotion association. It was born in 2001 in Palazzo Nuovo, within the framework of humanistic studies at the university. We are currently based inside CasArcobaleno, a cultural space in Porta Palazzo owned by the city and managed by ArciGay, which brings together 15 Turin associations. Altera has two souls, one more purely cultural and one more related to rights.

Carlotta: Regarding the more cultural soul, we are promoting Play Ethic, which is a project that uses role-playing as a tool to discuss and learn about different issues. And then we are affiliated with UCCA, which by the way is a partner of W.E., the union of Arci film clubs, so we are involved in spreading film culture through screenings and reviews. In addition, we organize training courses marked by practice, following the philosophy of learning by doing. Instead, as far as rights are concerned, we are working on an anti-racist project called SUPER, SUPporting Everyday fight against Racism, in which we are in a network with the municipalities of Turin, Bologna and Reggio Emilia.
 

 

Words of Europe is a project that has at its center precisely the intersection of cultural promotion and rights: tell us what has been your journey so far in W.E.?

 

Monica: So far we have been working with three types of people: high school students, community service volunteers, and people who are members of Rainbow House associations. We have experimented with using photography as a methodology of expression from which to start, thus trying - through photos - to convey messages that can be immediate and, at the same time, trigger debates on the issues and opportunities for discussion.

 

Carlotta: From here on, the idea is to continue to involve operators, women workers, civil service volunteers. Maybe even expand a little bit to our local area, to citizenship in general. It's natural for Altera to keep the language of culture united with the language of politics, so in the next steps, for example, we already have in mind to use role-playing as a working methodology, and thus exploit a strand that within our association is already quite developed.
 

What are the next events and dates for Altera?

Monica: As far as the Words of Europe project is concerned, we will have a meeting this afternoon at Casa Arcobaleno precisely on the theme of photography and other appointments over the next few months; as far as our association's activities are concerned, we are planning a series of training activities aimed at third sector workers and operators, and in general also at students, female students. In particular, there will be a videomaking course and a cultural design course: on our social channels and on the alteracultura.org website you will find all the information. Finally, in September, we will hold a public initiative at TOPlay, Festival del Gioco in Turin - one of the big role-playing and board game festivals there are in Italy - where we will do precisely a day of role-playing.

Carlotta: However, we try to be very active on various communication channels precisely because all the initiatives we do are free access. We would like to broaden our participation pool, there are so many opportunities and we are happy if someone wants to meet or get to know us.