In the early weeks of 2025, a new idea was born for the Spring Issue of Blending Magazine. Through the minds of professors Alessandro Calonego, David Andre Weiss, and Alex Klein they developed this semester’s theme of Underground Florence. The goal of Blending is always to urge students to engage within the local community, immerse themselves culturally, and learn in a practical environment, in which this theme only further stimulated.

All the way back in January, professors Calonego, Weiss, and Klein involved AUF’s full-time photography students and Florence University of the Arts (FUA)’s Journalism study abroad students in a month-long project to jumpstart the magazine. During these weeks, students interviewed and took photos of the likes of Gimmy Tranquillo from Controradio, local musician Lorenzo Hugolini, and the pillar of the underground scene: Bruno Casini. Through this month-long project, our students set a new precedent and level of work for the rest to follow.

The work of Blending Magazine truly begins in the early weeks of March, when the spring semester starts. Already having developed three articles for the magazine back in January through the interviews with Tranquillo, Hugolini, and Casini, both professors and students involved in courses dedicated to the Blending Magazine were able to understand the level we wanted to achieve this semester. Additionally this spring, students were involved more than ever, directly communicating with the communications office, running ideas and proposals by the magazine team, and working through many edits from abstract proposals, rough drafts, to the final copy that is presented before you today.

In today’s current digital climate it is more easy than ever to utilize online sources such as ChatGPT, Wikipedia, and Google Search results as a student; and more difficult than ever for professors to determine what is organically student-written and what is not. We wanted to develop a theme for this magazine that pushed students to pull themselves away from the screen and engage within the local community. To discover Florence from a brand new perspective; not through a google search. The theme of Underground Florence did just that. Through the test-run in January, engaging students in sit-down interviews, we saw immediate results. Then moving into March, this momentum only built further. Students displayed genuine interest, visiting local jewelers, cafes, record shops, speaking to passerby on the streets, all looking for genuine, organic stories from Florence’s past and current underground scene. 

As you read through this magazine, you will notice most, if not every article includes a genuine lived experience, or a sit-down interview with Florentine locals. When the Blending faculty team sat down in January and created this idea of Underground Florence, that was their bold vision: to develop a magazine filled with lived and true experiences that our students could take with them for the rest of their lives. Students this semester were able to discover Florence from a brand new, fresh perspective, and gain invaluable experience engaging with our local community.

To put it all in perspective, this semester a total of 14 courses were involved in the production of Blending Magazine. A special thanks is necessary to Nora Ferrucci for creating the new layout template for the students to work off of and coordinating interviews for students. Additionally, special thanks are in order for this semester's additional course instructors, Marco Gualtieri, Lapo Morgantini, Beatrice Compani, Silvia Giani, Federica Forti, Michael Howerton, and Valeria Faraoni. Without their involvement and coordination with their students, this magazine would not exist. 

As you read through Blending Magazine’s Spring Issue: Underground Florence, we hope that it brings you, the reader, the same sense of joy and excitement as it brings us. The students this semester truly went above and beyond. Whether it be through pouring their creativity into writing, further developing their classmates’ work as proofreaders, or bringing the articles and spreads to life as photographers and graphic designers, every role was essential to bringing the theme of Underground Florence to fruition.