These are the last days of the Paolo Rossi Un ragazzo d’Oro exhibition at the United Nations in New York, a solo show dedicated to Italian and international soccer Legend Paolo Rossi. Satisfied with the great success is his wife Federica Cappelletti, President of the Paolo Rossi Foundation. “A great job has been done, I am satisfied and proud. This exhibition, with iconic pieces about my husband’s life, also told by the new digital vault, is something unique.”
Like everything, or perhaps more than anything else, memory, in order to continue to exist, must keep pace with the contemporary. Can technology then come to the rescue of memories, to support the path that leads a man’s deeds into the future they deserve? This is the view of the Paolo Rossi Foundation, created to preserve and transmit the memory of the champion through cultural and social initiatives, which, more than forty years after the World Cup (1982) that consecrated the footballer to legend, has chosen to turn to Emblème, an Italian company specializing in the management, valorization and storytelling of art collections, as well as of all types of assets of passion, talent and memory, with its authorial team supported the Foundation in the selection and digitization of archival materials, as well as in the curatorial writing of the digital narrative, useful for structuring a wide-ranging story, in which the personal dimension is intertwined with the collective one. The result is a Caveau Digitale®️ that not only preserves memories, but restores value, context and perspective to Paolo Rossi’s life and career. This opens up unprecedented scenarios for the Foundation’s activities, with the new tool becoming a central narrative device in the initiative that marks yet another achievement, albeit posthumously, of the star player born in Prato in 1956.
If in 1982 it was the Ballon d’Or that consecrated his sports career, today it is an exhibition to remember him almost five years after his death. Pablito, as he was nicknamed during the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, is in fact the first Italian sportsman to be celebrated with an exhibition at the United Nations, which opened at the Glass Palace in New York on May 28 and runs until June 6. Promoted by the Paolo Rossi Foundation and produced by Worldcamp International, under the patronage of the Permanent Representation of Italy to the UN, the FIGC, CONI and FIFA, the initiative marks a symbolic and deeply evocative moment: in addition to his soccer exploits, it recounts the human and cultural legacy of Paolo Rossi, a champion who was able to embody determination, humility and collective spirit, becoming a reference point for different generations, far beyond the playing field.
Coinciding with World Soccer Day and the 70th anniversary of Italy’s entry into the UN, a project was thus presented that traces Pablito’s story through a series of significant memorabilia from his career, collected from his beginnings to his World Cup triumph with Enzo Bearzot’s Italy, along with a selection of objects that belonged to him. From iconic ones, such as the Ballon d’Or or the Golden Shoe, to the most significant jerseys he wore, to the boots he wore during Italy-Brazil. Scarpini, for those who do not remember, that delivered the ball to the net three times during that memorable challenge, won by the Azzurri 3-2.
A complex and layered existential story, then, which thanks to Emblème takes on additional depth through a new mode of fruition. Thanks to the Caveau Digitale®️, the exhibition route is enriched with a series of interactive digital stations that allow visitors to explore the life and career of the champion. In this way, Pablito’s memory takes on an immersive, engaging character, by means of a structured system that makes accessible documents, images, videos and testimonies, including unpublished ones. A limpid example of how digital storytelling can complement the physical one, extending its effectiveness and usability, dimensions and potential. New phosphorus for unforgettable memories, but which time would have risked yellowing, and which now find themselves projected into the future instead.
The article Paolo Rossi between Memory, Culture and Digital Innovation comes from TheNewyorker.
