From 20 November to 18 December 2025, Arvier hosted the first residency of Arvier Innovation, a programme dedicated to trainers and researchers with an innovative approach. It concluded after four weeks of meetings, exchanges and shared work with the community of Arvier, in the Aosta Valley. with the community of Arvier, in the Aosta Valley. The community bids farewell to Sara Guidolin and Rocco Pisilli, who completed their residency from 20 November to 18 December, and enthusiastically prepares to welcome Anna Masiello and Marko Djordjevic, starting on 7 January.
The Arvier Innovation residency programme was created to bring skills to the area and transform them into concrete actions through the Arvier Innovation Labs, events open to the entire community. These are training spaces designed to transmit knowledge, spark ideas and stimulate the creation of innovative projects in key areas such as social sustainability, climate change in the mountain context and inclusive culture.
These workshops have been designed as places for meeting and dialogue, where different experiences, needs and visions can be shared, imagining together the present and future of Arvier and its territory.
The community as a pillar for the development of sustainable tourism: Sara Guidolin's residency
During her residency, Sara Guidolin, Sustainable Destination Manager with experience in various international contexts, including Greece and Kenya, worked on community-based and nature-based tourism, accompanying the community in a process of co-designing tourism experiences at an embryonic stage, rooted in the resources and specificities of the territory.
What kind of tourism do we want? What is the positioning of the territory? How important is networking between people, businesses and institutions? These are the questions Sara asked the community in order to arrive at a shared vision on the subject.
During the workshops, participants acquired simple and practical tools to:
- read the territory based on existing resources;
- understand the main trends in tourism and the types of travellers;
- reflect on the specific limitations, needs and potential of Arvier;
- co-design replicable micro-experiences at an embryonic stage, rooted in the community.
The co-creation exercises gave rise to proposals for micro-experiences that intertwine nature, local traditions and food and wine production, often imagined as experiential journeys capable of recounting the territory in an authentic way.
The discussion also brought to light some tensions and unmet needs, such as:
- the need for meeting places;
- the issue of managing and caring for existing spaces;
- shared recognition of the value of natural and cultural resources, perceived as a heritage with strong potential;
- the lack of role models to facilitate the transformation of ideas into structured actions.
Telling the story of the territory through grassroots narratives: Rocco Pisilli's residency
Rocco Pisilli is a consultant and project manager in the field of local and global development, with extensive experience in urban regeneration and civic engagement projects, such as Casa Netural and Wonder Grottole. During his residency, the community worked on storytelling and territorial marketing, exploring the theme of narrating the territory through the voices of those who live there. His residency concluded with the creation of a a collective audiovisual archive, which collects narratives, materials and desires that emerged when imagining Arvier in 2050.
In his workshops, Rocco introduced the concept of territory as a stratification of meanings: not only as a geographical space, but as a place of memories, daily practices and collective imaginaries. Through examples such as Matera 2019 and Visit Trentino, he showed how narratives can contribute to redefining the identity of places.
An important focus was placed on grassroots narratives, understood as tools for community empowerment, capable of giving people back control of their own stories. With this focus, participants experimented with practical tools such as narrative interviews, emotional maps and digital archives for collecting and restoring the stories of the territory.
In addition, his work also focused on the importance of participatory art and on the creation of an audio guide dedicated to the plain part of the Aosta Valley, which is often marginalised in traditional narratives. The workshop addressed practical issues, such as which places to include, which voices to involve, how to make the audio guide accessible and engaging, and how to ensure the sustainability of the project over time.
Rocco’s residency ended with a final exhibition that presented the audiovisual archive of Arvier’s narrative, Arvier Futura (2050), an archive that collects audiovisual material produced during the meetings, historical photographs from the archives of the Arvier municipal library, and letters and drawings made by the participants.
The final exhibition was a lively opportunity for discussion and sharing, opening up a space for dialogue on the community’s desires and visions for the future.
When we asked Rocco what he will take away from this experience, he replied:
“The confirmation that grassroots narratives can redefine a territory: the stories collected directly from the community have shown how local identities can be redefined through participation. This is a valuable lesson for my future work.”
The impact and new opportunities
The programme launched with the first residency involved 54 participants aged between 22 and 70, with very different backgrounds and professions: outdoor operators, small guesthouse managers, municipal technicians, tourism students and wine producers. It also helped participants become more aware of the impact that networking and strengthening community cohesion can have on the area.
The results of this residency do not end with its conclusion, but become working material for the next stages of the residency programme, fuelling a continuous process of research, training, activation and communication between the residencies and the various themes that will continue from now until May.
Among the issues that remain open and will guide the future development of Arvier Innovation are, among other things, the management of seasonal tourism and economic sustainability throughout the year, the need to move away from hit-and-run tourism in favour of longer stays, and the definition of a shared strategy for positioning the area.
The next residents arriving in Arvier
With the arrival of new residents, Anna Masiello and Marko Djordjevic, Arvier Innovation will launch its second residency on 7 January, continuing with a cumulative approach: the reflections, ideas and questions that emerged during previous residencies will form the basis for new insights and experiments.
Anna Masiello, founder of R-Coat and Trieste Senza Sprechi and content creator, will focus her training work on eco-design applied to tourism and everyday practices.. Through lessons and workshops, participants will explore how to design low-impact services, prototypes and projects learning to see the territory with new eyes, recognising its resources and critical issues, and generating sustainable, realistic and shared ideas.
With Marko Djordjevic, an expert in software engineering, web development and data science, the community will have the opportunity to work on the application of data science in the agri-food sector.. The training activities will focus on the use of digital tools tooptimise work, resources and production processes, both in everyday life and in the agri-food sector.
The complete calendar of Arvier Innovation Labs is available here.
Arvier Innovation does not claim to promise immediate solutions. Rather, it chooses to build spaces of possibility, relationship and shared imagination over time, accompanying the community of Arvier – and the surrounding area – on a slow, conscious and collective path of transformation, capable of generating a future starting from people and places.
Photo credits: Fondazione Santagata e Rocco Pisilli.
***
“Agile Arvier. The Culture of Change” is a project by the Municipality of Arvier (Ao), in collaboration with Fondazione Santagata and Netural Coop Impresa Sociale, funded by PNRR – Next Generation EU, for the pilot project PNRR M1C3 Measure 2 Investment 2.1 line A – CUP F87B22000380001 – Project Arvier Innovation – Residence for innovative trainers – CIG B82B5B7CAE – WP05 – EDUCATION LAB CLP REGIS 2.1_
