Memory as Material of the Project of Sustainability

Abstract

The concept of sustainability is multidimensional and includes institutional, social, cultural, environmental, and economic dimensions. It shows the extent to which humans and the environment are interdependent. The multidisciplinary drive of research applied to sustainability, therefore, stems from the awareness of an interconnected world. Man, endowed with the gift of memory, establishes with the environment mnemonic relationships, from recollections to oblivion. Memory also protects us from past events because we remember the perceptions and feelings experienced during personal or collective circumstance. Starting from this perspective, a reflection is proposed on how memory, as a tool and measure of human knowledge, can offer solutions to both the problem of sustainability and to the development of processes and projects based on shared values. The concept of memory can also include things or objects as they store knowledge, meanings and memories to be discovered. The various forms memory takes, are to be considered the material through which man decodes and builds time and space. Hence, memory has always been the bedrock of sustainability as it works as a common theme across generations until its goals are achieved. In space, these mnemonic relationships are manifest in terms of heritage and nature. Nonetheless, the outcome of these considerations is that in order to use memory as an instrument of the project of sustainability it is necessary to redefine, through their interconnections, the concepts of both memory and sustainability.