Italy Field School: From Caves to Cultural Renewal in Matera

This Field School was based in Matera which offered the opportunity to experience the uninterrupted historical development of the longest continually inhabited cave dwellings in the world.  The course traced the path of a culture from its earliest inception to its deliberate suppression in the 1980s, and the program of strategic renewal that has created a flourishing, contemporary cultural Renaissance, grounded deeply in the retrieval of that local history. Students examined not only the relationship between geography and human occupation in Matera over several millennia, but the relationships between cultural history, collective memory, social learning and public action that brought that city back to life.  The course was about how a network of caves, that made a city, was abandoned and then revitalized through a networking approach to cultural restoration and material renewal. The material culture of the area is rich in historical material, from Paleolithic caves, cave paintings, medieval rock-dug churches, Byzantine, medieval and Renaissance frescoes, and archaeological artifacts. It is a city that is a living example of cultural renewal through social networking, a modern city that occupies its past. Human history has continued uninterrupted in the naturally-occurring caves of Matera and the region of the Gravina canyon for over 12,000 years. Using Matera as their base, the group took field trips to the Murgia, the Gravina canyon, to Alberobello to see the ancient trulli dwellings, and to Taranto, a city founded by the ancient Spartans and now the industrial centre of the Apulia region.

Instructor: Dr. Sally Hickson, School of Fine Art and Music