ACT CULTURAL EVENTS

A City in Motion

The forays of Fabrizio Cicconi - one of Italy's most interesting portrait photographers - into the world of ACT began with his illustration of the 2003 and 2004 editions of the Mobility Statement. The Company gave the artist only one instruction: describe, in its wealth of components, the "face" of the new ACT.

The remarkable intensity of his images and the positive reaction from viewers spurred a public exhibit entitled, “Reggio Emilia: A City in Motion”, at Palazzo Magnani in the summer of 2004. Cicconi's 50 portraits succeeded in describing an entire society or “social organism” undergoing significant change and the show became a major cultural event.

Graziano Delrio, the mayor of Reggio Emilia, underscored this fact on the introductory pages of the exhibit catalogue: “A tram is a small universe in motion that gathers together and reflects social strata and generational differences (with a particular inclination for the extremes of the existential spectrum: the very young, who cannot yet move independently; and the elderly, who can no longer move independently). With his self-propelling gallery of faces, Cicconi records changes and evolutions in the community and in its primary element... the human fabric”.

The complete text of the introduction to the catalogue can be downloaded. Click on the icon corresponding to the subject you’re interested in.

	Sonia Masini President of the Province of Reggio Emilia	Preface
	Graziano Delrio Mayor of the City of Reggio Emilia	Preface
	Marco Bianchini President of ACT	One hundred years of transit
	Paolo Rodighiero General Manager	Moving the city and adding value to the area: what ACT is and how it has changed in recent years
	Lorenzo Ponti President CRAL ACT	From “pustal” to minibus: the pride of providing collective mobility
	Sarah Grugnetti	The new face of ACT: portrait of a city in motion
	Sandro Parmiggiani	Glances of Travel

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2005 Orvieto Photography Prize

Fabrizio Cicconi's photography exhibit on behalf of ACT, “A City In Motion: Reggio Emilia 2003-2004”, received the most prestigious awardat Orvieto Fotografia 2005, one of the most important photography festivals in Europe.

Following its inauguration in Reggio Emilia, Orvieto hosted the photographs in the Palazzo dei Sette and awarded the exhibit the 2005 Orvieto Photography Prize, the most important award given.

The jury, (composed of such famous names as Andrea Bayer, the art director, and photographers Adriano Scognamillo and Helene Made, recognized ACT “...for succeeding in creating a strongly innovative, creative communication project which is a true ‘cultural event’ yet promotes the company.

For the first time, the prize rewards a company which has used photography as a tool for disseminating culture to promote its image,all the while avoiding didactic overtones.”

During the awards ceremony, the vice-mayor of Orvieto congratulated Fabrizio Cicconi, “...whose portraits succeed in shaping a new, original photographic project”. While the President of the Orvieto International Photography Fund praised the work saying, “...Cicconi’s expert lens has succeeded in revealing inner worlds so well that his ‘Tales of Travel‘ is much more than a ‘chronicle of daily life’. In fact, it rises up to become a “moment of truth...”.

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"RACCONTI IN VIAGGIO” 2008: A LITERATURE PRIZE THAT’S TRULY REMARKABLE

Now in its fifth edition, "Racconti in Viaggio” (Stories while Traveling) is a literature contest launched in 2003 by the ACT Local Transit Agency with the sponsorship of the Municipality and the Province of Reggio Emilia, and with the support of the Baobab/Young People’s Writing Laboratory of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia. Its purpose is to develop and support creative writing projects that promote reading and writing among students at the high schools in our province.

Students are asked to put into writing “the things they hear, see, think and experience when they travel by bus or on one of the ACT trains that connect towns in the Reggio Emilia area with the city and its schools”.

Because of the success of the first edition, which was instituted by a group of literature teachers at the Filippo Re State Professional Institute for Business and Tourist Services in Reggio Emilia, the contest was extended to other high schools in the province. Literature teachers at Filippo Re were joined by instructors at other schools in the Reggio Emilia area, who came up with new creative writing experiences that ultimately involved an increasingly large number of students: almost 200 in the first edition in 2003; over 500 in the second edition in 2005; about 700 in the third edition in 2006; over 1,000 in the fourth edition in 2007, and nearly 2,000 in the fifth and latest edition in 2008.

In the first edition of Racconti in viaggio 2003 , 182 students in eight classes of the first two levels at Filippo Re participated during the 2002/2003 school year and were supervised by their respective literature teachers. The result was a small book entitled, “Racconti in Viaggio”, which was published by ACT in a run of 5,000 copies. This book contained the 23 most skillfully told stories selected by a jury of “specialists in words” that included then-President of ACT Prof. Marco Bianchini, Beppe Carletti of the Nomadi rock group, writer Giuseppe Caliceti, and some of the most prominent journalists from newspapers in the Reggio Emilia area: Pierluigi Ghiggini, then-Editor of “Ultime Notizie”; Ippolito Negri, former News Editor of the “Resto del Carlino Reggio”; and Luigi Vinceti, a writer for the “Gazzetta di Reggio”.

During the second and third edition of Racconti in Viaggio as well, the best stories written by kids in the first two years at the Filippo Re, Adelmo Lombardini and Silvio D’Arzo schools (who took part in the creative writing labs associated with the contest in the two 2004/2005 and 2005/2006 school years) were selected by a special jury and then collected in the books, “Racconti in viaggio 2005 ” and “Racconti in viaggio 2006 ”, both published in 6,000 copies.

For the fourth edition of the contest (2006/2007 school year), the jury headed by ACT President Angelo Malagoli selected the thirty best stories out of the one-hundred that had been preselected by literature teachers in the first two levels at the Filippo Re, Adelmo Lombardini, Silvio D’Arzo and Antonio Zanelli schools, and then brought to the attention of the jurors. These thirty were published in a volume entitled, “Racconti in viaggio 2007 ”, of which 10,000 copies were printed.

A more broadly-based contest was held this year for all high school students in the province of Reggio Emilia (and not only for those in the first two levels of high school) for the fifth edition of the contest (2006/2007 school year). The result was a small anthology entitled “Racconti in viaggio 2008 ”, which brought together the thirty best stories chosen by the jury (out of the almost two hundred that had been preselected by instructors).