Heritage Landscapes vol.10

Prince's life and a city, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Genius and music. The color of skin. A map. A site. Welcome to Becoming Prince.

On June 7, 1958, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Prince was born. His father (a fine pianist leading the Prince Rogers Trio) and mother (a singer) begin collaborating after meeting at the Blue Note jazz club in Minneapolis. Soon they fall in love, get married. And they have a son whom they decide to name after his father's stage name: Prince Rogers.

Becoming Prince is a site created by The Prince Estate, which can be explored in two ways: small chapters, archival photographs, interviews with friends and artists, anecdotes, audio; or by clicking on photographs arranged on a map of Minneapolis. The result is a glimpse into a life of runaways, experiments, divorces, sports, small concerts, music heard in dreams, revelations.

Becoming Prince chronicles the life of the American star with a fresh point of view, emphasizing the importance of the city's cultural background, and traversing the stages of a complicated youth. Until he becomes the artist he dreamed of being: someone capable of uniting people with his music, energy and imagination, beyond all barriers.

Two podcasts pay tribute to Franco Basaglia's centennial and his incredible contributions. The first is “Archives of Madness. In search of Franco Basaglia” produced by RaiPlay Sound: 10 episodes among the milestones of the psychiatrist's life, from the 1950s in Trieste to Law 180/1978 and the final closure of asylums in Italy. The second is “Tutta colpa di Basaglia”: a bio-investigation, hosted by Ludovica Jona and Elisa Storace and produced by Piano P, that winds its way through science, medicine, politics and social sciences, wondering what remains of the great adventure led by Basaglia.

How did the aperitif originate? The story reconstructed by Martini goes from Armenia in 4100 B.C., reaches the Mediterranean, touches Phoenicians and Greeks. Then the Romans refine the technique of making wine, and slowly, between mugwort, appetite-stimulating herbs and the Middle Ages, we arrive at flavored wines. This is an interesting, precise, and fast-paced journey through the history of wine and aperitifs, leading up to the invention of Vermouth in the 1700s, and touching on the history of branding among labels, bottles, posters, and style.

At Luna Luna Studio in Los Angeles during the Oscars 2024, there were two days of music programming curated by artist Carsten Höller and Drake. There were roller coasters, rocking chairs, merry-go-rounds, and stages that grew taller and taller until they created brutalist geometries. The inspiration came from Hamburg's Luna Luna, an amusement park that opened in 1987 but was built by Basquiat, David Hockney and Salvador Dali and some of the world's most famous artists. The operation commissioned by Prada thus brought back to life a huge dynamic installation from the 1980s, evoking a story of a hall of shadows, enchanted trees, glass labyrinths, imagined by the eyes of great artists.

Credits: The Prince Estate, Base Design, Greg Helgeson; RaiPlay, Piano P; Martini & Rossi, Museimpresa; Prada

Here at Promemoria Group it has been a sparkling April full of events. One of the most interesting ones that we are most proud of and want to mention is “Archivio Fashion meets Archivio Design.” Our ARCHIVIO magazine (where we talk in a contemporary language about the beauty contained in archives), after a trip across America, came to Triennale Milano during Design Week.
Here we talked about materials between innovation, sustainability and conservation in the world of fashion and design with Gaspard De Massé, Balenciaga; Giacomo Golinelli, Promemoria Group; Marco Pecorari, Parsons Paris; Marco Sammicheli, Triennale Milano; Matthew L. Scullin, MycoWorks; and Elisa Storace, Kartell Museum.