La Caienna / 2019 - 2024
La Caienna, a transformative community space in Vicenza, combined co-working and cultural activities to support art, social engagement, and ecological initiatives. Originally a former goldsmithing factory, La Caienna drew inspiration from Wenger’s concept of a "community of practice" and Tsing’s idea of "assemblage," emphasizing inclusivity, collaboration, and ecological care. With membership fees kept under €100, La Caienna fostered a sense of belonging through shared resources and sustainable practices that minimized environmental impact. Despite legal and structural challenges, La Caienna continued to thrive, embodying resilience and the ethos of "Slow Hope" as it adapted to evolving internal and external conditions.
La Caienna represented a unique hybrid space, part co-working hub and part cultural center, dedicated to art and social engagement. Located in a historically marginalized area, it transformed a former factory into a multi-purpose environment for artists and artisans. Functioning as an evolving "community of practice" (Wenger, 1998), La Caienna fostered shared values and intentional openness, promoting a continuously self-organizing and adaptable community.
La Caienna emerged as an alternative to traditional workspaces, fostering inclusivity and collective self-expression through a fluid gathering of materials, practices, and identities. It provided a space where diverse artists, craftspeople, and social practitioners coexisted in a flexible configuration, incorporating individual workstations with shared facilities such as a kitchen, garden, and lounge. By encouraging interdependence over individualism, residents engaged in daily exchanges that challenged consumerist norms and explored sustainable, relational practices.
In 2022, La Caienna expanded to host 26 individuals, including artists, agroecologists, and curators. Despite facing structural limitations, environmental challenges, and complex relationships, La Caienna remained a center of shared knowledge, creative experimentation, and resistance to external cultural pressures. This resilience, supported by both infrastructural flexibility and a philosophy of intentional ambiguity, nurtured a spirit of mutual learning and sustainable practice that continually adapted to changing dynamics.
La Caienna operated as a communal, self-managed ecosystem where ecological responsibility was interwoven with economic minimalism. Membership, set at under €100 per person, covered essential costs, with financial interactions kept minimal. The internal economy was based on exchange, mutual support, and non-monetary contributions, with material needs met through shared resources, upcycled materials, and organic practices. This established a culture of environmental stewardship and simplicity.
The space hosted a range of collaborative projects, including Maka, a women’s self-care group; OrtoVolante, a communal garden promoting agroecology; and Nuove Rigenerazioni, an EU-supported program for young people who had left school, focused on vocational training and environmental awareness. Other initiatives included Grand Art Hotel, a city-backed program extending artistic activities to homeless individuals, and ife collective, an art-based critical inquiry group exploring sustainable, multi-dimensional perspectives.
La Caienna was envisioned as an open-ended "assemblage" (Tsing, 2015), where self-financing, active engagement, and community care created resilience. Through gradual change and collective dedication, La Caienna embodied a philosophy of sustained optimism and revolutionary adaptability.
