🇪🇺 TEEN European Digital Community: Young Oak from Mantova, Italy

Young Oak

I am an architecture student passionate about history, restoration, and the relationship between space and human experience. My work explores how environments shape emotions, memory, and collective identity — from urban regeneration projects to experimental ideas for habitats beyond Earth. Through international collaborations and cultural engagement, I have developed a strong interest in interdisciplinary creation. I see theatre as a living architecture: a space built with bodies, voice, and time. I am motivated, curious, and committed to projects that connect people across cultures.

The soil / the need

When I first moved closer to theatre, I was looking for a space where ideas could breathe beyond drawings and academic projects. As an architecture student passionate about history, restoration, and urban life, I was missing a more immediate, human-scale form of expression. I was searching for dialogue, emotion, and collective creation — something alive.

The first seed

Watching a performance.

Tell us about that first spark

I remember watching a performance of Shakespeare where space, light, and bodies worked together like architecture in motion. It made me realize that theatre is also about constructing environments — but with emotions, rhythm, and presence. That moment shifted something in me. I saw theatre not only as art, but as spatial storytelling.

Roots (people & experiences that shaped your path)

My academic background in architecture, especially restoration and urban regeneration, shaped how I see space and narrative. Professors who compared architects to “doctors of buildings” taught me to listen to silent structures — theatre taught me to listen to people. International experiences like the International Astronautical Congress, collaborative workshops, and volunteering in large-scale events strengthened my interest in collective creativity and cultural dialogue.

The trunk (what keeps you in theatre)

Theatre keeps me because it is alive. It is collaborative, transformative, and rooted in community. It challenges perception and builds empathy. Like architecture, it creates spaces — but ephemeral ones that exist in time, memory, and human connection.

Branches (future / desire)

In the future, I imagine theatre as a parallel and complementary path to architecture. I hope it will help me develop stronger storytelling skills, deeper emotional intelligence, and interdisciplinary collaborations. I want to explore how spatial design and performance intersect — especially in cultural heritage, public space, and experimental environments.

If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? Why?

A young oak. Not because it is already powerful, but because it grows into strength through time, resistance, and patience. An oak does not rush its growth — it builds deep roots first. It survives storms, adapts to seasons, and becomes a place of shelter for others. Like a sapling, it holds potential, direction, and quiet determination: proof that growth is a process, not a status.

CONTACT: https://vs.co/mnhcfmt1