«1522 | Engines running”: here’s everything you need to know about the event in Milan against violence against women
For five years, the farmyard of Cascina SpazioVivo, the heart of the innovative UpTown district of Milan, has hosted an installation as simple as it is radical: one hundred red chairs left free for anyone who wants to sit, meet, stop. No consumption restrictions, no commercial purposes: just a public space designed to be lived in. The color is not random.
It is the same red that symbolizes the fight against violence against women throughout the world, and it is the reason why the 100 Red Chairs, born in 2020, have never been simple street furniture, but a permanent manifesto against gender violence, renewed every year with new initiatives, exhibitions and meeting moments dedicated to women.
It is in this setting – a neighborhood that for years has been transforming its common spaces into awareness-raising centers – that the most recent stage of this journey is born: on Sunday 20 September 2026, the 100 Red Chairs will virtually leave the confines of the farmyard of Cascina SpazioVivo for the first time to meet the streets of Milan, on the occasion of «1522 | Motors marching against violence against women”, the traveling rally of vintage cars and motorbikes promoted together with the Metropolitan City of Milan, the Fratelli Cozzi Museum of Legnano and Scuderia Sant Ambroeus.
The name of the initiative recalls 1522, the national anti-violence and stalking toll-free number active 24 hours a day, free and anonymous, established by the Department for Equal Opportunities.
For one day, that number leaves the private dimension of help calls to become a public and shared symbol: every car and every motorbike at the rally will give up its race number to exclusively display the “1522” stamp, transforming a parade into a procession of collective alliance.
The procession will start from Legnano and Viale De Gasperi in Milan, will cross the Arco della Pace and the Arena, and will end – not surprisingly – right at Cascina SpazioVivo in the heart of UpTown: the same public space that the 100 Red Chairs have made, in recent years, a point of reference for the neighborhood.
Here, waiting for the participants, there will be a convivial lunch and at 3.22pm – a time chosen not by chance – a large collective selfie taken with a drone will unite the crews and public in a single symbolic image. Participation in the rally includes a free donation to the Una Quale Centomila Foundation, which supports anti-violence centers in the area.
