EMERGENZE is a journey with neither map nor compass which began in December 2014, inspired by an accursed love for this land, by the joy that comes from contact with printed material, and by confidence in the communicative potential of that medium.
On the initiative of a small group of artists and journalists, the legendary Emergenze magazine was born. To date, five issues have been published at periodic intervals and distributed throughout Italy with the zeal of missionaries.
Encouraged by the success of this fully independent magazine with no advertisements, no sponsors and no institutional support, the team responsible for the creation of “Emergenze” decided to reinvent the distribution system for publications by purchasing and developing a site which is unique in Italy: EDICOLA 518.
Edicola 518 is a bookshop with an area of four square metres occupying the site of what was once a historical newsstand in the city of Perugia. With the purchase of this little kiosk in front of the church dedicated to the city’s patron saint, Sant’Ercolano, the artists of Emergenze brought their editorial process full circle: directly carrying out the conception, planning, creation, printing and distribution of their own magazine and of Emergenze Publishing books.
Alongside its own publications, Edicola 518 offers a selection of art books and international magazines which is unique in Italy, with a special focus on art, design, architecture, fashion, anarchy, politics, philosophy and travel.
Edicola 518 is not merely a bookshop: it is a window which enables communication with the world and the diffusion of its own ideas about society. This is also why open-air debates are organised in public spaces during the hot months of the year, with high levels of participation and sharing of ideas. Among those invited to speak during the first year were the following: Giulietto Chiesa, journalist; Piero Cipriano, anarchist psychiatrist; Paolo Finzi, director of the magazine “A Rivista Anarchica”; Pierpaolo Capovilla, singer-songwriter; James Clough and Luca Barcellona, calligraphers; Ilaria Drago and Marcello Sambati, actors; and Francesco Codello, anarchist school director.
For these reasons as well as for others which only become clear by visiting “Edicola 518”, we like to describe it as FOUR SQUARE METRES OF INFINITE SPACE.
The journey this project has taken has been as filled with beauty and as fraught with difficulty as life itself. While acknowledging that every contribution, no matter how small and unseen, has been indispensable in getting us to where we are today, the following are the profiles of the team as it currently is.