“Listening to communities, institutions, and to those who live in and move through the city every day. This is one of the founding principles of BAM – Biblioteca degli Alberi Milano, a project by Fondazione Riccardo Catella, a place created to engage with those who experience it, spend time there, or work there. FAIR PLAY represents one of the most coherent expressions of this vision: an initiative that symbolically and concretely returns to the heart of the city, inspired this year by the founding values of the Olympic and Paralympic Games: inclusion, brotherhood, unity, respect, and understanding.” Francesca Colombo, Cultural General Director of BAM, explains how a public space such as Biblioteca degli Alberi has integrated with the Olympic event to strengthen the bond between city and nature, wellbeing, and sport, through the many initiatives launched from September 2025 through June 2026.
BAM FAIR PLAY 25/26 is a program included in the Cultural Olympiad of Milano Cortina 2026 and in the Giochi della Cultura schedule. Its distinctive character lies in the way BAM – Biblioteca degli Alberi Milano interprets the role of culture within urban space: as a daily, shared, and accessible practice.
“The direction of BAM FAIR PLAY 25/26 stems from a complex ecosystem of institutional and cultural collaborations, taking shape in a journey of 70 stages, made possible by 96 active partnerships and the involvement of over 1,050 artists,” states Francesca Colombo.
FAIR PLAY is not a theme to be narrated, but an attitude to be practiced through collaboration with cultural organizations and local stakeholders working together toward a common goal, as within the Cultural Olympiad promoted by Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026 and the Giochi della Cultura program realized with the support of Regione Lombardia.
A way to restore sport to its deepest meaning while inviting the city to reflect on participation, mutual respect, and coexistence. “A journey composed of multidisciplinary moments, artistic installations, and performances – music, dance, theatre, contemporary circus – designed to engage the entire community,” Colombo explains, “and to rediscover fair play not only as a sporting rule, but as a philosophy of life.”
This vision found symbolic expression on Sunday, February 8, 2026, when, following the opening of the Winter Games, BAM transformed into a place of illumination, encounter, and shared storytelling.
At the heart of the day and the initiative was BAM Performative Land Art, curated by Francesca Colombo: a participatory installation illuminated with the Olympic and Paralympic colors and brought to life through collaboration with the NABA Scenography Department and the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. The Olympic rings and the Agitos – symbols of the Paralympic event – traced on the lawn became open narrative devices: invitations to pause, reflect, and leave a mark.
Citizens gathered to share reflections on the founding values of the Olympic and Paralympic Games – fair play, brotherhood, peace, inclusion, respect, equality, solidarity, inspiration, determination, courage. Words born from personal experience that merge into a collective narrative. “All collected messages are symbolically ‘planted’ in the lawn, like mirrored flowers,” Colombo explains, “forming a large choral artwork: a poetic gesture that preserves the voices of the city.”
To date, more than 300 reflections have already been collected: testimonies describing sport as a space for connection and shared growth. “You, us, everyone. Together,” “Sense of belonging, team spirit, friendship,” “Challenging oneself and sharing with others.” Fragments that restore to sport its most authentic capacity: generating community.
“FAIR PLAY is a great team effort,” Colombo emphasizes, recalling the network of 96 entities involved – artists, local and international institutions, Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026, the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Park Ambassadors, and partners. “A path that guides audiences toward discovering the true meaning of fair play: a philosophy of life grounded in respect, integrity, and kindness.” A vision that, as Colombo notes by citing Dino Buzzati and the 1956 Cortina Olympics, recognizes sport as a form of poetry capable of speaking to everyone.
The day of February 8 did not end within the park’s boundaries. Thanks to collaboration with Triennale Milano, the narrative expanded and set itself in motion. A walk connected BAM to the Palazzo dell’Arte, crossing the city and several stops along the Olympic Promenade, arriving at Triennale – home to Casa Italia – for a special visit to the exhibition White Out – The Future of Winter Sports, dedicated to the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
A simple yet meaningful gesture: building physical and symbolic connections between cultural institutions, intertwining nature, design, sport, and urban vision. A way to reaffirm that the Olympic narrative does not belong to a single place, but spreads throughout the city.
From this same vision emerged the FAIR PLAY podcast: eleven episodes, one for each Olympic and Paralympic value, commissioned from writers, philosophers, artists, intellectuals, and athletes, produced by BAM in collaboration with Doppiozero. A project that broadens perspectives and finds in sound an additional tool for access and inclusion. The episodes, read by the students of MALAGOLA – School of Vocal Arts, also become a physical experience: eleven stations throughout the park forming the Olympic and Paralympic Path, designed to endure over time.
“The invitation from institutions and partners was from the outset to leave a legacy,” Colombo explains. “Not something that ends with the event, but a tangible, accessible heritage capable of accompanying the city even after the Games.”
And perhaps it is here that BAM FAIR PLAY finds its deepest meaning: not in telling Olympic values, but in putting them into practice, day after day, within the life of the city.
