multitude

Red Light Xmas

Every year I tell myself: This is the last time I go home for Christ­mas. And every year I punc­tu­ally go.
Why don’t I like going home for Christ­mas is because it’s a full time activ­ity. Nobody rests in Christ­mas, if you are rest­ing you are not help­ing! Buy a gift, See the aunt, make a call, tie a knot, rob a bank.. it’s end­less. Christ­mas 2013, How­ever, was unique because it marked the begin­ning of a new city trend: The light­ing festival.

What hap­pened is that this ital­ian town has a young and pro­gres­sive city coun­cil. Its deputy Mayor, Fil­ippo Bul­gar­ini d’Elci, is a 34 years old man with back­ground in com­mu­ni­ca­tion. His idea is sim­ple: Instead of the tra­di­tional Christ­mas lights, the city would invest its 85.000€ bud­get for a glam­orous event . Vis­i­tors can fol­low a route through the city cen­ter and dis­cover his­tor­i­cal palaces adorned by light­ing instal­la­tions. This will attract more tourists and pin the city as the most insta­grammed of #xmas13.

Now, great Idea. I think it worked, and it can also be that some­one really vis­ited Vicenza because of the light­ing fes­ti­val. But that is where things get a lit­tle weird. It’s called fes­ti­val and as such it should dis­play the work of mul­ti­ple artists. To involve young archi­tects and design­ers guar­an­tees a pas­sion­ate par­tic­i­pa­tion, a vari­ety of entries and it is a way to pro­mote the work of those who, against all evi­dence, are still try­ing to keep the city alive and kicking.

City Coun­cil, instead, com­mis­sioned the entire fes­ti­val to one office alone, and the whole thing turned red.
I have no doubts in say­ing that the great­est suc­cess of the ini­tia­tive is the anger pro­voked to the two most pow­er­ful local com­mu­ni­ties: the clergy and the seniors, who nat­u­rally asso­ci­ated the red lights as sym­bol of sin and hol­i­days in Ams­ter­dam. Fer­tile ground for evil spir­its. The debate was lively in the local news­pa­per, and it’s one kind of vic­tory, for the young deputy expert of communication.

But those who are wait­ing all year for such oppor­tu­nity, well, they have plenty of Cam­pari to forget.