Launched by Murate Art District in collaboration with the Assessorato alla Cultura and the Assessorato alle politiche giovanili of the Comune di Firenze, the call of Voci adolescenti wants to collect – through the website www.murateartdistrict.it and the dedicated number +39.320.2505022 – a series of audios of maximum 20 seconds sent by young people who are living the hardships and the drama of the pandemic on their own skin. The call is spread in Italian and in English and invites you to send words, sounds of the enviroment and/or emotional sounds.

“The project was born with the experience of my teenage daughter struggling with distance learning since last March. My daughter, as all students like her, spend all her day in front of a monitor to attend classes and to do her homework, she talks to her friends on chat or on an online platform, and if she has spare time, watches TV series. During the first lockdown the effort has been great, but there was hope that everything would be quickly resolved. Now, a little less than a year later teenagers start to show significant signs of discomfort. This impression of distress was confirmed when we met some middle school students who said they were anxious about their parents’ and grandparents’ health, concerned about the economic situation of their family, scared for the future. For the first time in history what our children are experiencing affects millions of children. In the world there are 1.2 billion teenagers, about 18% of the world population. They are our future, those in charge of planning and making a change for the survival of our planet. Solitude, isolation, lack of physical contact are a great deprivation for every human being, but are particularly hard for young people. Peer interaction has enormous importance in the formation of personality and learning. The feeling of distrust toward the future, the fear of the next catastrophe, the sense of powerlessness and guilt are likely to have disastrous consequences on an entire generation. Kids need to be heard.”

“I’m writing to you about a new art project of mine in association with MAD Murate Art District. It’s a sound installation, composed by voices of teenagers like you from all around the world. You are experiencing a difficult time, both as an individual and as a dweller of this planet. But for the first time in history, what you are experiencing (isolation, worries about adults’ health, your family’s economic situation, the impossibility of physically going to school) concerns millions of kids all around the world. Did you know that teenagers are about 1.2 billions, 18% of the world population?”

Benedetta Manfriani