(Day 1)
In March, for the third year in a row, Lviv Polytechnic hosted the Days of Italian Language and Culture. The grand opening took place in the lobby on the second floor of the University’s main building. Lots of students and teachers attended this important event.
The meeting was opened by Professor Oleh Matviikiv, First Vice-Rector of Lviv Polytechnic. He emphasised that these days would provide a great opportunity to get to know the masterpieces created in Italy and urged everyone to actively participate in the events.
There was a photo exhibition by students of the Italian Institute of Photography (Milan) in the lobby, and next to it there was an exposition of projects by students of Lviv and Milan Polytechnics.
– It is very symbolic that we have two exhibitions here: Women in Design and Emergency Design – Design Rebuild Life. They show how art can respond to the crisis by rebuilding the space for our lives, said Professor Nataliia Shakhovska, Rector of Lviv Polytechnic.
The exhibitions of works by Italian and Ukrainian youth were presented largely thanks to the initiative of Nataliia Siasina, curator of the Vitaworld/Vitaukr project.
Architecture and environmental design
On the same day, Lviv Polytechnic hosted a discussion on architecture and environmental design that brought together representatives of Ukraine and Italy.
Luisa Collini, Professor at the Politecnico di Milano, presented the Design Against War project. She described how students from Ukraine and Italy worked to create prototypes for the restoration of destroyed buildings:
– This project lasted over a year. Students worked with available materials such as bamboo and repurposed ammunition boxes.
(Day 2)
Francesca Mancini, an Italian journalist and photojournalist, gave a short lecture and presented her photo exhibition for the Lviv Polytechnic journalists. She shared her story of how she became a journalist and her more than 25 years of experience as a photojournalist around the world. Francesca studied Latin and Greek, and was fond of dance and theatre. It is this diverse background that has formed the basis of her unique career.
– Every step I took in the world of journalism was full of adventure. I was ready to explore the world, and this world began to open up completely new horizons for me. Travelling opened up lots of new opportunities for me as well. I have been to China, Africa, Asia, and each of these experiences has become important for my work, she said.
(Day 3)
On the occasion of the Days of Italian Language and Culture, Orest Vasylko, the head of the Leonardo da Vinci Center for Italian-Ukrainian Cooperation and lecturer at the Department of Applied Linguistics; Nataliia Hots, the head of the Centre for International Education; and Oleksandra Stepaniuk, a specialist at the Centre for International Education, met with students and told them about the Erasmus+ program which allows students to study in Italy. Our university has already concluded about a hundred inter-university agreements under the Erasmus+ KA1 program with Italian universities. All information on agreements, applications, documents, competition and studying in foreign countries is available on the Lviv Polytechnic’s website in the section Erasmus+КА1 Program Current Opportunities.
(Day 4)
The final online meeting of the students and their Italian colleagues took place in the Zachariewicz Hall on 31 March. The students presented their mock-ups which were placed on a huge table.
Among the guests there were Emilia Ametrano and Samuel Drago, as well as partners of our University and representatives of the Ukrainian academic community. All of them joined the Emergency Design – Design Rebuild Life workshop, which was dedicated to projects by Ukrainian and Italian students aimed at urban renewal through design and architecture.
Andriy Pavliv said that the project was originally called Emergency Design My Land, and together with his colleagues, they aimed to design projects that take into account limited resources and ensure rapid adaptation to new conditions, with an emphasis on the importance of traditional materials and preserving national identity for quick implementation.
