Medieval civilisation is to be credited with a paradigmatic change in the representation of the future. If in Greco-Latin antiquity this is often understood to be an unknown passer-by who assails us behind our backs, it is with the chansons de geste that it becomes adventure: something that is about to arrive, a challenge to be won against a faceless adversary.
Yet where is the sense in talking about the future today, when the wounds of the past have still to be healed? How to face an unknown duellist when the present already confronts us with harsh tests such as pandemics, environmental collapse and the rekindling of old conflicts? Crisis contexts have always provided mankind with a valuable opportunity for reflection. At the dawn of the Second World War, it was Benedetto Croce himself who recalled how 'in History, there is never decadence that is not at one and the same time formation of or preparation for new life'.
The new Villa Vigoni Focus on the theme of "Future!" seeks to investigate the great changes of our time, in order to understand how to understand how best to orient the actions of the European community in the forthcoming 'adventures' which - as the 58th edition of the Venice Biennale suggests - are increasingly assuming the guise of interesting times.
