VENTO (Wind)

According to recent studies, the average speed of the wind on the surface of the Earth is increased since 2010. Since the 1980s, wind energy, a rapidly growing alternative source, has been threatened by a tendency for the wind to decline. Scientists discovered a reversal around 2010, of the trend towards a reduction in the global average speed, which in fact began to grow in the following years.
According to the results of the research, the recent growth rate of the global average wind speed is three times higher than the rate at which the wind decreased in intensity before 2010.

If in a moment of scarcity, man should rely on given resources, wind is definitely a never-ending phenomenon. Human activities have always tried to include this natural element to achieve a more efficient productive environment, from natural air conditioning systems to windmills, until wind turbines.
The workshop will celebrate “the struggle between natural force and human ingenuity, between our limitations and the grand devices we create to defy them”¹.

Students will be asked to work on wind responsive objects, from flags to kites, from windsocks to parachutes, small architectures able to contrast, incorporate and highlight the presence of wind as fundamental natural resource. Each device will be made of ripstop Nylon, a textile purposely designed for wind- resistant products.
Objects will be stitched, or heat sealed during the workshop and finally exhibited at the end of the workshop in a series of selected sites around Ortigia island.

^{1 Margareth Bourke-White, Twenty parachutes, Tucson, Arizona: Nazraeli Press, 2002}