LA CAIENNA / 2019 - 2024
La Caienna was a self-managed community space in Vicenza that combined co-working, artistic production, and ecological activism. Located in a former goldsmithing factory in a marginalized neighborhood, it functioned as a hybrid cultural center—part studio, part social laboratory—rooted in collaboration, sustainability, and shared knowledge.
Drawing inspiration from Etienne Wenger’s notion of a “community of practice” and Anna Tsing’s concept of “assemblage,” La Caienna cultivated a fluid, inclusive ecosystem. It offered individual workstations alongside common areas such as a kitchen, garden, and lounge, fostering daily exchanges among artists, artisans, agroecologists, and cultural practitioners. Membership remained under €100 per month, supporting a non-hierarchical internal economy based on mutual aid, material reuse, and ecological responsibility.
Over the years, La Caienna hosted over 30 active members and served as an incubator for numerous collaborative initiatives, including Maka (a women’s self-care group), OrtoVolante (a community agroecology project), and Nuove Ri-Generazioni (an EU-funded youth program). It also supported inclusive arts projects such as Grand Art Hotel, involving unhoused individuals in textile-based art, and ife collective, a group exploring interdisciplinary perspectives on sustainability through artistic research.
Despite infrastructural and legal challenges, La Caienna thrived as a dynamic, evolving environment—resilient by design. Its strength lay in its intentional ambiguity and capacity to adapt. By privileging slowness, care, and collective agency over efficiency and competition, La Caienna embodied a radical yet pragmatic vision of sustainable cohabitation—an assemblage in motion, grounded in relational practices and sustained optimism.
