The City of Happiness

A public art project on the political value of happiness, grown in episodes through towns and festivals: photographs, actions, dialogues and videos.

While devising GMGS_What the hell is happiness?, Codice Ivan kept asking about the political value of happiness: how should we live? The search opened further questions. Can unhappiness be precious? What moves a person to expose themselves in public? What could we do, or not do, to be happy?

The City of Happiness was born from these questions and from the need to open the stage work to other artistic forms. It grows out of the urgency to build relations with people outside the theatre, in the streets and in their homes, through images and public actions that open up, rethink and redefine the idea of happiness.

The project evolves in episodes, and each episode takes its own form: public photographic installations, performative actions, a flash mob, dialogues in private and public spaces, video.

In 2013 Benno Steinegger created The City of Happiness – San Salvi, a video and sound installation for the Estate Fiorentina in Florence.