Nate Berg, on the Planetizen blog, has a great posting about Graziano Cecchini, the man who dropped half a million plastic balls down the Spanish Steps in Rome a couple of weeks ago. The act of civil disobedience was, according to some, intended to represent the corrupt Italian government, with each ball representing a politician’s lie. Whether or not that’s totally accurate, I don’t know. Below I’ve posted part of what Nate said about this, because, well, I don’t think I could say it much better.

“You could call what Cecchini did vandalism, activism, littering, public art, or any number of adjectives. But the definition doesn’t really matter as much as the (probably unintentional) statement it makes about the utility and inherent democracy of public spaces. These are places built for use and reinterpretation by the public. Especially in older cities, the public for whom these public spaces were originally built have been dead for hundreds of years, meaning the places are subject to be used and abused as the subsequent publics decide. This can take the form of riots, farmers markets, parades, and, yes, a staircase covered with balls.

This act is a reminder that we need to keep public ownership of our historic public places, and sustain that mentality as our cities build new places intended for the public.”

Filed under: I'On Group, Urban Sustainability, Videos & Photos on January 30th, 2008