Urban and community rebirth in the district of Caserta: Valogno as “arts village”

In the north-west of the district of Caserta, among the twenty-four villages of the municipality of Sessa Aurunca, Valogno is an exceptional presence for its discontinuous history scarred by light and shadow, grey and colours. This village is stretched out like a spindle along the provincial road that from the Appian Way reaches Roccamonfina, on the slopes of the namesake volcano. This paper aims to bring Valogno to the attention of the scientific community as a singular example of street art implementation to the regeneration of the city, in its ethical declination, before its artistic one, merging the urban historical approach to the urban drawing one. The street-art project (titled “The colours of grey” by the promoters) was moved on the one hand by the need to start a path of individual rebirth, and on the other by the idea of involving the entire local community to increase its sense of civic duty, rather than to business. The project has been developed with progressive enthusiasm over the last decade, managing to characterize this village as a singular “arts village”, because it uses arts as a tool to push individual citizens to “give themselves” in favour of the well-being of the community.