Visitors and residents strolling and rolling north along India street in Little Italy may have found a good reason to cross the street at Hawthorne instead of the customary left turn at the corner after Mona Lisa.
Continue north and you’ll find Little Italy’s newest resident on the block – Convivio Society.
The art of Dutch pop artist Hayo Sol–in San Diego at the Convivio Center
The art of Dutch pop artist Hayo Sol–in San Diego at the Convivio Center
Located in a beautiful brick building on the ground floor with almost 4,000 sq. feet, founder, Tom Cesarini was frantically organizing finishing touches on the newly remodeled space and confirmed it will be ready for its grand opening scheduled Saturday, April 27 coinciding with Art Walk.
After almost a year, doors will finally open and visitors are invited to come, browse, peruse and hang out, after all, this is a center and heritage museum to be exact.
When asked what Convivio means, Tom responds, “The word itself means coming together, uniting. Enjoying life and enjoying the moment. When I founded Convivio, I focused on the questions, what is missing? What does the community want? And ultimately, it was some sort of heritage, preservation initiative and a roof over our head that we could call home; we were lacking that. A group home that all the community groups can share and that was the vision of Convivio and why I founded it.
“It’s been ten years since the founding of Convivio, in 2003. We started with projects and programs. We published a couple of books on the local history – Little Italy and the fishing industry. We developed archives with UCSD. These are all firsts for our community and the gaps that we were filling. We just kept on pushing forward till last year we found this space in Little Italy and this is the new home for the Convivio center.
“Ultimately, there is a bigger vision. The bigger vision is to have a cultural institute, a large space where we have a language academy, a school, a café, archives, a research room, and a huge event center. Something tied to academia, partnered with the universities perhaps, all the other community groups and make this really a center for the Italian population in San Diego. And this is the start for us here in the community. If we have a venue, we can bring some programing down from L.A. and maybe partnering up with the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles.”
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