Vinca: A community for peace. Creativity, art, and people for social reconstruction

This paper explores Vincanta – The Memory That Resists, a site-specific performative project initially conceived by Michelangelo Ricci in the village of Vinca, Tuscany. The place is one of the locations along the Gothic Line scarred by Nazi -fascist atrocities in 1944. Drawing on theories of cultural memory, ritual, and performance studies, the paper investigates how Vincanta functions not merely as commemorative art, but as a community-based act of resistance and historical resignification. Based on in-depth interviews, field observation, historical knowledge, and analysis of unpublished materials, the study argues that Vincanta is an example of how a tourist art experience can help to rework mourning and post-traumatic conditions, enabling collective energies and intergenerational dialogue.