PALIMPSEST: the dance of Lost Movement meets science

Thanks to the PALIMPSEST project and the Lost Movement Company, art becomes a tool for reflection, dissemination, and information due to its ability to reach citizens and raise awareness on civic and environmental issues.

PALIMPSEST is a European research project involving over 23 national and international partners and scientific centers, including the Politecnico di Milano, with the coordination of Professor and researcher Grazia Concilio. PALIMPSEST works on the (re)generation of sustainable practices in landscapes of high cultural value that are facing significant environmental challenges. Among these, the recovery of the Lambro River in the city of Milan is included, coupled with a deeper civic awareness of territorial ecosystems on the part of the inhabitants themselves.

The major innovation brought by PALIMPSEST is its operational method, which develops co-creation experiments involving creative actors, public bodies, researchers, artists, and civil society together. It fosters a dialogue between artistic actions and the specific needs of the territories, to imagine new scenarios and innovative practices that connect human actions, landscape heritage, and sustainability goals.

The Lost Movement Dance Company will be the author and protagonist of an urban dance performance aimed at suspending the city’s everyday life, invading the Politecnico district like a watercourse, involving citizens, tourists, and students. The performance, developed around the themes of water, continuous transformation in communion with the environment, relationship and listening within communities, will create a moment of sharing and collective reflection during which the machine created by the project’s scientists for cleaning the river will be inaugurated.

With the aim of involving and raising awareness, especially among younger people, Lost Movement has engaged students from various local entities in the performance: ArteMente – Centro di Alta Formazione per la Danza, the schools LICOS – Istituti De Amicis and the Liceo Coreutico Tito Livio and the dance schools Arteka and Top Out Dance School.

The PALIMPSEST project is part of the program for the Milano Design Week. Lost Movement’s site specific is scheduled for April 7th, 9th, 10th, and 11th, 2025, at 4:45 PM, on the Leonardo Campus, location of the Politecnico di Milano.