Immaginario urbano ed epidemie

Richard Williams writes provocatively, we live in a second-hand world. Our experience is filtered, consciously or not, by the imaginary that becomes the basis of our definition of reality and therefore of our daily decisions and behaviors, the criterion of meaning through which we look at the world and at ourselves. The Covid-19 pandemic has been experienced on the imaginary level. Even the younger generations who have not experienced the last great pandemic, still had a representation of the epidemics, built by the diaries of the great travelers, from literary narratives, and above all from films and TV series, within which they found themselves as catapulted. This latest epidemic, not unlike any other that has ravaged history, has lived and strengthened the symbolic link with the city. In particular, it is the empty spaces of the denied city that have played a central role in building the imagination of the current epidemic as well. As in the past, the cities emerge from this dramatic experience as the undisputed protagonists, scenarios in which every memory of the epidemic will continue to take shape, remaining, once more, inextricably linked.