Tianyuan difang 天圆地方 (The sky is round, the earth is square)
This section contains photographs taken by Chinese language students from the University of Turin during the photography workshop "Yangtze: The Mythical Mother River" conducted by Professor Yan Preston in December 2023 (see Events section). The students explored Turin's urban landscape searching for decorative motifs characterized by a circle inscribed within a square, tracing back to the Chinese concept "tianyuan difang 天圆地方" (The sky is round, the earth is square). The images are accompanied by reflections, written by the photographers themselves, on the encounter between Eastern aesthetic culture and Turin's architecture, and on the possibility of adopting new perspectives regarding Chinese presence in the city and the dialogue between cultures.
Chinese Geography
This section contains photographs taken by Chinese language students from the University of Turin in spring 2024, following the lecture titled "China Through Chinese Eyes: A Land of Memories" delivered by Professors Stefania Stafutti and Tanina Zappone (see Events section). Students were asked to document Chinese presence throughout Turin's urban landscape through photography. The images are accompanied by reflections written by the photographers themselves, examining their personal perceptions of Chinese presence in the city and how this interacts, either explicitly or implicitly, with their daily reality. The creation of this "photographic itinerary" served as a starting point for reflection while establishing these working methods as valuable pedagogical tools for understanding and studying Chinese language and culture. Furthermore, the activity aimed to foster students' awareness of how much of the world they study exists within "their own" world; this awareness should be directed toward facilitating their interaction with communities, positioning them as agents of inter-acculturation processes. In this way, the project also becomes an exercise for improving community integration dynamics within the territory. Finally, the activity sought to encourage students to identify points of connection and/or contradiction between what they learned through traditional teaching methods or diverse sources about Chinese cultural world and what they experienced through the "visual geography" they created.
Geography of Memory
This section contains two interviews and a questionnaire conducted in collaboration with students from the University of Turin and members of Turin's Chinese community. The initiative aimed to guide students in comparing their personal perceptions of China with the "memories" preserved within the local community. The first interview, conducted by Gioia Wang and accompanied by two original videos, features her mother and explores the dual sentiments of pride and nostalgia experienced by a member of Turin's Chinese community. The second interview, conducted by Arianna Minutolo, takes the form of a peer exchange: an open dialogue between Arianna (an Italian student with study experience in China) and her friend Cora (a Chinese student residing in Turin). The interview compares their respective opinions and impressions about living abroad.
