interviews

2050+: the studio that brings architecture, technology and environmental policy into conversation

IT

Architect and curator Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli and curator Erica Petrillo sit down with us to explain how the interdisciplinary studio 2050+ is redefining the concept of curatorial practices, moving between contemporary phenomena and spatial exploration.

Founded in Milan back in 2020 out of the need to make sense of the complexity of the world we live in, 2050+ builds new narratives by working across spatial practices, curatorial research, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Architect, curator and founder of 2050+ Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, together with curator and studio partner Erica Petrillo, told us what it means to be part of a young practice that dissolves the boundaries between disciplines, shaping a rich, unique language of the present. Architecture, scenography, curating, and research are no longer treated as separate, self-contained fields; instead, they constantly interact, engaging in an almost osmotic exchange with a wide range of domains of knowledge.

2050+ team portraits. Courtesy 2050+

THE INTERVIEW WITH 2050+

Nowadays, interdisciplinarity can almost be seen as a necessity. Issues such as the environment, politics, and technology also intersect in your projects. Where and when does the need to engage with these topics arise? And how does 2050+ position itself within this landscape?
Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli: We have to take a step back to when the studio was founded about six years ago. Coming from our previous experiences, most of the core team at 2050+ had already explored, in their own practice, what it means to work through an interdisciplinary lens. So there was a natural alignment of both needs and experiences already moving in that direction. In the Netherlands, I spent five years as a partner at OMA, which had developed a parallel branch – AMO – where spatial practices were used as a lens to observe contemporary reality. The goal was to create projects capable of telling the story of a changing world, also through publishing and exhibition design. Our need stems from the fact that architecture, as a discipline, is not enough to capture the complexity of the world around us – especially given the accelerating crises we are experiencing. Over time, we’ve developed the ability to engage in dialogue with other fields of knowledge, enriching our perspectives. We try to offer a more complete view of the world. This doesn’t mean we claim to be experts in everything – we don’t replace a sociologist, a scientist, or a political theorist – but we have developed the sensitivity to engage with these fields, building relationships that are as open and osmotic as possible. We’ve learned that a complex reality cannot be addressed without a highly articulated interdisciplinary structure.
Erica Petrillo: This interdisciplinary approach is very much reflected across the studio. I don’t actually have a background in architecture, but rather in political science. I came to curating through a path alongside Paola Antonelli. At MoMA, we worked in the R&D department, and that experience was crucial. The department was founded on the idea that museums shouldn’t just be containers for displaying beautiful objects, but social and political engines – spaces with a responsibility to foster conversations that go beyond aesthetics. The belief that institutional spaces dedicated to art, architecture, and design should engage with social, political, and environmental issues is something that has naturally carried over into 2050+. We arrived there from different backgrounds, but with very similar ways of understanding and engaging with the world.

Working as a collective across different areas, your practice brings together professionals from a range of fields – architects, designers, and researchers. What does it mean to work as a team and engage with such diverse professional figures?
Erica Petrillo: Actually, we don’t define ourselves as a collective. This is an intentional choice, because in terms of scale, ambition, and structure, we are a studio. Working together is always a challenge that requires aligning codes and even language, but once this initial effort is made, the dialogue becomes increasingly productive. Interdisciplinarity isn’t limited to the core team of ten to fifteen people based in Milan: the studio has an almost “accordion-like” structure, expanding for specific projects that require expertise we may not already have. For example, two years ago we developed a site-specific installation in Istanbul focused on air toxicity. In order to gain the specialized knowledge we needed, we involved a toxicologist from Istanbul University. This way, the accordion-like nature of the studio allows us to bring in highly specific expertise when necessary.
Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli: It’s a kind of ongoing negotiation. Especially in today’s world, with the way we interact with technology platforms and experiment daily, there’s a kind of clustering process based on disciplines and tastes. We try to keep the exchange and negotiation with other bubbles active and continuous, and this requires deliberate, ongoing effort. The projects we work on and put our name to are always the result of extensive collaborations and could not exist without a polyphonic, ensemble approach.

We could say that every collaboration comes with its own challenges. Engaging with curators and directors means your work is in constant evolution and dialogue. What do you see as the strengths and the challenges of working with many hands?
Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli: Maintaining a focus on complexity, finding the stimuli to renew ourselves project after project, and cultivating an open-minded approach. This requires a commitment that must be continually refreshed and also passed on to those who come to work with us in the studio. Finding people with that level of flexibility, adaptability, and curiosity isn’t easy. In my view, one strength is building a shared culture of research and language. Another, in terms of the market, is the fact that we work in a hybrid or kaleidoscopic way. This allows us to engage in a multifaceted manner and enter different domains, reflecting the interdisciplinarity we aim to keep alive.
Erica Petrillo: I’d like to connect to the word Ippolito used: complexity. On one hand, there’s an enormous richness of perspectives and viewpoints. We live in a complex world, and we need tools to embrace it whole. On the other hand, it’s always challenging to communicate what we do, especially in Italy. The flip side of complexity might be considered a weakness – the challenge of narrating ourselves –, but it’s one we try to embrace with pride.

2050+, Riders Not Heroes. Anatomy of a Delivery, 2020

2050+’S PROJECTS

What does it mean to work in an independent creative practice in Italy? Six years on, how do you assess your journey so far, and what do you hope for in the years ahead?
Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli: It is not always easy to work in Italy. Many of us have worked abroad, and returning has been a real challenge. There are structural difficulties, budgets are lower, and creativity and culture are often seen – as a matter of perception – as less economically significant than other sectors. We rely on cultural institutions, but in Italy, few operate in a contemporary way, even in terms of production. Only a handful of institutions understand the contribution a studio like ours can make. Often, museums call us in to support exhibitions, but our role is reduced to a very limited margin, which can be tedious and frustrating. Few curators and directors grasp that, for us, scenography and exhibition design go hand in hand with content development. Fortunately, we have open collaborations with those who do understand.
Erica Petrillo: I would add that, in moments of optimism, we tend to look at Italy as a gateway to regions that aren’t necessarily part of the Western mainstream dominating established museum institutions. Other places we’ve worked – like the Netherlands, the UK, or the US – offer less opportunity to play with geographic nuances, whereas Italy can be seen as a point of connection between the SWANA region and the former Yugoslav regions. “Mediterranean Italy,” as Federico Campagna puts it, is a concept that fascinates us; it’s a hub linking other geographies, and that gives us a bit of hope.

Your portfolio spans a wide variety of projects: collaborations with museums and theaters, exhibitions and initiatives with brands – Gucci, Sunnei, Nike – independent research projects, and much more. Looking ahead, which direction do you want to take? What areas would you like to explore further, and why?
Erica Petrillo: Our ambition for the future is to become a bit more sustainable in the long term. Being a young studio, it’s challenging to plan projects on a larger scale. It’s not a matter of choosing between focusing solely on independent or commercial work. For us, projects shouldn’t be seen in separate compartments: the approach to research-driven work and more commercial projects is always the same. We would like to maintain and expand this variety, but above all, gain the stability to plan and design in a more consistent, long-term way.
Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli: It’s important to emphasize that our approach doesn’t change. We’re omnivorous: while languages and codes shift across different contexts, our attitude remains the same. Our work with Gucci during last year’s Salone is a good example. We had the chance to collaborate with Palestinian artist and designer Dima Srouji – an opportunity that, in today’s context, would be very difficult to realize within traditional cultural institutions.
Another example is Riders Not Heroes – conceived and produced at the very start of our studio – a research-based film project exploring the conditions of delivery riders during the pandemic, addressing issues that are still very urgent. It grew out of a project we were developing for Nike as consultants and researchers. The osmosis between areas that seem very different is very much present at 2050+ and highly significant.

Which project do you consider the most ambitious, or the one that best embodies your vision? And why?
Erica Petrillo: We like to think that the perfect project still lies ahead, but there are ongoing projects we often refer back to that we feel really capture the essence of the studio. One of these is Synthetic Cultures, curated and designed for the 10th Rotterdam Biennale in 2022. It’s a research project focused on in vitro meat – a topic that is rarely addressed in museum contexts due to political, environmental, and sociological considerations. From the very beginning, curating, research, and scenography developed in parallel, coming together in the installation presented in Rotterdam. Recently, it had a second life in Vienna, with a more queer and feminist reading of the theme.
Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli: I don’t think we’ve reached a manifesto project yet, but some certainly reflect our interests. I’m still attached to Riders Not Heroes, realized through two films, which established a language and a way of looking at certain dynamics, both our relationship with technology and with otherness. Another project that embodies our approach is our collaboration with Masbedo on Diluvio Universale, a Gaetano Donizetti opera at Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo. We curated the visual dramaturgy for this unique collaboration, which was notable both for the approach to the opera itself and for Masbedo’s role as directors. The visual narrative was reshaped to convey environmental activism, in partnership with the marine conservation organization Sea Shepherd. The opera became a device to address urgent issues, creating connections across different dimensions, beginning with what happens outside the theatre.

2050+, Canicula, Complesso dell’Ospedaletto, Venice. Photo Marco Cappelletti Studio, 2026

CURATORSHIP ACCORDING TO 2050+

In your various installations, certain distinctive traits stand out: the use of modules, suspended supports, and minimalist lines and shapes. All elements that give the work a clearly defined personality. How much does architecture influence the way your projects are experienced, and what do you see as the key elements for a transversal approach to curating?
Erica Petrillo: Perhaps the only way to answer is by comparing my current experience with past ones. Experiences at MoMA and the Triennale were extremely formative, but the workflow operated in silos. Curators did their work, handed it off to exhibition designers, the installation was set up, and the process ended. In our case, the process is osmotic. Projects are shaped, even spatially, by the initial theme. I’ve come to understand much more how space is a factor to consider at every step of the curatorial process; it’s another voice in the polyphony that helps structure a narrative. The experience is perhaps 90% about space, perhaps more than content.
Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli: Scenography and exhibition design should be seen as material and spatial tools to strengthen and expand the content. This works when there’s continuous exchange from the very start of content production, through a very close dialogue. Curatorial input is first translated into the mise-en-scène, which then interacts with the artists’ works. The relationship between space and content also reflects on the architecture of the venues themselves. In the end, there is no fixed approach and each exhibition carries its own language, even in terms of exhibition design.

How do you define curating, and how can it engage in a dialogue between space, languages, and architecture?
Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli: There’s a type of visual-rational knowledge and a type of knowledge that comes through the body. What you perceive through other senses is part of the cognitive experience of an exhibition. In projects like Penumbra, Nebula or Canicula, sound, darkness, and blinding light heightened the tension that the works were trying to convey. Then there’s the material aspect. We design and produce installations and scenographies in which the material itself is never neutral. Take, for example, the brick used in de bello, made of cement for post-war reconstruction – it carries meaning on its own and already tells part of the exhibition’s content. The dialogue is constant, and the material is never inert.

Are there figures, practices, or experiences that have helped shape your vision?
Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli: There are countless influences: directors, artists, writers. It would be unfair to single out one over another. It’s true that we’re a studio, not a collective, but we value our polyphony. The operation of total synthesis is very difficult because collectives of experimental cooking, digital world enthusiasts and activists coexist, and each of us brings a bit of their own experience. There’s a diagram we often use in our lectures that represents us well: a constellation.
Erica Petrillo: I’m sure everyone in the studio could give you at least ten names each. Maybe we should just send you a photo of our library.

Maddalena Domenghini

2050+
IG @2050,plus

2050+, Synthetic Cultures CH I. Photo Gaia Cambiaggi, 2022
2050+, Synthethic Cultures CH2. Photo Davide Marcianesi, 2025
2050+, Riders Not Heroes. Anatomy of a Delivery, 2020
2050+, Penumbra, Complesso dell’Ospedaletto, Venice. Photo Andrea Rossetti, 2022
2050+, Nebula, Complesso dell’Ospedaletto, Venice. Photo Lorenzo Palmieri, 2024
2050+, Il Diluvio Universale. Photo 2050+, 2023
2050+, Il Diluvio Universale. Photo 2050+, 2023
2050+, Gucci, Bamboo Encounters. Photo François Halard, 2025
2050+, Fuoripista, gres art 671, Bergamo. Photo Diego De Pol, 2025
2050+, de bello, gres art 671, Bergamo. Photo Giovanni Galanello, 2025
2050+, Canicula, Complesso dell’Ospedaletto, Venice. Photo Marco Cappelletti Studio, 2026
2050+ team portraits. Courtesy 2050+
by

Maddalena Domenghini

June 12 · 26
A museology out of joint. An interview with Cristiana Collu, director of the Querini Stampalia Foundation in Venice

IT

“A foundation in a state of rêverie.” This is how Cristiana Collu, director of the Querini Stampalia Foundation in Venice, describes it. Her words paint a picture of a utopia coming to life, the story of an accessible museum programme and a dream shared with the institution she has been leading for the past year.

Appointed director of the Querini Stampalia Foundation in Venice in September 2024, Cristiana Collu shared with us her thoughts on the reorganisation of the collection, unveiled on 5 May 2026, on the new residency programme, and on the impact of ‘extraordinary’ museum initiatives in a city as out of the ordinary as Venice.

Cristiana Collu. Photo Adriano Mura

On 5 May 2025, the first exhibition under your direction opened: John Baldessari. No Stone Unturned – Conceptual Photography; and this year, again on Giovanni Querini’s birthday, The Dreamer opened. Is there a common thread linking these two exhibitions and the other exhibitions and initiatives organised over the past year?
Perhaps it is more of a method, a declaration of intent renewed every year on 5 May, like a manifesto that is rewritten to put itself to the test, but with the right touch, that of a certain irony, the kind practised by John Baldessari, and which I find exemplary, in the work Teaching a Plant the Alphabet, the centrepiece of the exhibition No Stone Unturned. A title that is not merely a note scribbled by Baldessari on a sheet of squared paper, displayed amongst the ephemera, and is far more than the banal, pragmatic, athletic, horizontal and colloquial ‘don’t give up’; it is democratic in the truest American sense: it is addressed to anyone, in any circumstance, without hierarchy; it is linked to the culture of the ‘comeback’, of the second chance, of defeat as a temporary state; it is rooted in a worldview in which failure is not an ontological condition but a narrative episode, as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: “There are no second acts in American lives”. Baldessari’s phrase ‘No stone unturned,’ on the other hand, is an epistemic attitude. It does not say ‘don’t give up’ nor ‘hold on;’ it says, ‘keep looking, ‘look where the eye cannot reach at first glance’. It does not encourage blind perseverance but intelligent perseverance; it is Sherlock Holmes’s method: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”, exalted by Baldessari’s ironic and irreverent lightness. John is a free seeker, like Giovanni Querini, a Sisyphus sui generis, a Diogenes of our time: the lantern is his curious gaze, the staff his never mocking irony. To stop searching is to contribute to the breakdown of social bonds. Searching, on the other hand, is always a constructive act, a radical gesture that does not succumb to disillusionment; indeed, as John knew better than anyone, it turns the tables on it. All this is linked to the 2025 theme ‘Wonder Booster’, wonder as a propellant, as the energy that propels the gaze beyond the predictable, beyond the already seen, beyond the already known. In ‘Dreams Begin Responsibilities’, this year’s theme embodies all the tension between imagination and desire, between vision and care. A dream is not escapism; it is the highest form of intentionality. Bachelard calls it rêverie, not the nocturnal dream, passive and unconscious, but daytime rêverie: an active, vigilant, intentional consciousness, a ‘function of unreality’ that transcends the real only to return to it with greater force. The dream is an imagination of the future, tension, desire projected onto the world, the ability to see what does not yet exist and to work so that it may exist. And this is where the question of inheritance arises: as Derrida taught us, it is not something one possesses, but something one inhabits, questions and transforms; and the heir is never merely a custodian, but someone who takes a stand, called upon to choose what to keep, what to transform, what to let go of, whilst assuming the responsibility of creating in turn. We are on a journey in the company of the arts; it is hard to get bored, easy to be amazed, and we retain a sense of wonder without any established norms to imitate or rhetorical traditions to fall back on. The Querini Stampalia is a foundation in a state of rêverie: alert, active, curious, and capable of imagining without losing touch with reality.

The reorganisation of the collection is both meticulous and daring, thanks in part to the dialogue with contemporary art, which is explored through various narrative and exhibition devices. Considering the ‘theatrical’ approach taken in the reconstruction of Pietro Longhi’s work, or the ‘negative’ display in the room featuring Rivalta’s sculpted horse, why did you choose these narrative approaches to display the collection?
The Dreamer is a re-staging of the Querini collection as if it were a temporary exhibition, an approach I have used on previous occasions (La Magnifica Ossessione at the Mart, Time Is Out Of Joint and Panorama IXX at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art) and which I find particularly fruitful and interesting. The exhibition is not presented as a definitive arrangement, but as one of many possible ones, and it derives from a direct engagement with the layered complexity of the house-museum, finding a precise visual and narrative framework in the cinematic imagery of Luchino Visconti’s Senso. As in a film, the rooms are conceived as sequences and sets to be walked through, deliberately made environments in which time expands, overlaps and becomes charged with emotional tension. Here, the visitor is part of a narrative constructed through images, atmosphere and resonance: the history of the Querini family engages with a more unstable, dreamlike dimension, where past and present intermingle. The exhibition unfolds across eighteen rooms. Each refers to an evocative concept that guides the viewer’s interpretation and experience: The Art of Dreaming, The Portrait, ThePoetry of Steel, Time, Fiction, Silence, Care, Memory, War, The Banquet, Government, Politics, The Dreamer, Intimacy, Beauty, Life, The Fleet, Motherhood. These titles do not function as captions, but as elements of distortion, thresholds that open different perspectives on the permanent collection, creating resonances between works, spaces, and time. The galleries thus become chapters of a single fragmented narrative, in which history does not proceed linearly but through layers, references and unexpected connections, offering the visitor an experience that is both perceptual and imaginative. Chronological history accelerates, rendering the past, present and future anachronistic. The reference to cinema, and in particular to film editing, is not ornamental but methodological, based on Eisenstein’s teaching: when you juxtapose two different images, you do not get the sum of the two, but a third entity of meaning. Malraux speaks of this in relation to his imaginary museum, which, by bringing together works of art that differ in era, place of origin and formal characteristics, liberates art from its historical context. What matters is not the specific value of each individual work, but rather the possibility of discovering, within the entire artistic output of every time and place, the common and transcendent capacity to question the world. The possibility of an exhibition narrative that is neither chronological nor encyclopaedic can be constructed as if it were a film. Each room is a set or a stage. Each juxtaposition is an edit. The visitor is not the spectator, but the director. In the case of Pietro Longhi, the artwork is a gaze that is already cinema, already a scene, already a film shot, already direction: a translation into space of the painting as a window onto the world and of the painting as a construction of that world. The ‘negative’ exhibition in the room with Davide Rivalta’s lion, on the other hand, works on the opposite yet complementary principle: an unexpected, unsettling, dreamlike presence that activates a system of relationships within the non-linear time of art history ‒ layered and dense ‒ which writes the story or narrative through images that shine in constellations of meaning that also resonate within our own biography, awareness and knowledge.

Carlo Scarpa’s Garden, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice. Photo Adriano Mura. Courtesy: Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice

THE QUERINI STAMPALIA FOUNDATION ACCORDING TO CRISTIANA COLLU

On 5 May 2026, the exhibition opened by Nigel Cooke, the Querini Stampalia Foundation’s first artist in residence. What made you decide to launch a residency programme? Will there be further artist residencies in the coming years, or will this be a one-off?
Nigel Cooke’s residency marks the start of a cycle that we wish to continue and adapt in various forms, an open programme capable of adapting to artists and their artistic language: from painting to the visual arts and the full spectrum of contemporary production. This age-old model tells us something fundamental: the most forward-thinking institutions have always understood that art needs time and artists. In Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke puts it with a precision that has lost none of its original force: “Here, there is no need to compete with time; here, a year is of no importance, and ten years are nothing; to be an artist means: no counting, no calculating; to mature like the tree, which does not force its sap and stands firm in the storms of spring, confident, without the fear that summer, in the end, might fail to arrive”. The residency is an attempt to create the conditions for this maturation, to remove the artist from pressure and grant them respite. It is a dialogue, a moment of experimentation and research, of forging connections, and in Nigel Cooke’s case, this dialogue has been particularly fruitful. The space that later became an exhibition venue was first his studio; his works were created there, in dialogue with this light, with this city and its history. Venice has a long history of artists who have lived here. Turner returned every year to capture a light that could not be found elsewhere. Brodskij spent his winters here; in Venice, Nietzsche underwent an intellectual metamorphosis that he himself recognised as fundamental. And many others, and we wish to be part of this tradition by giving time and space ‘to look forward to summer’.

The series of talks About: Talks / Reframing Culture placed architecture at the centre, viewing it as a cosmopolitan practice and – as you yourself put it – the ‘infrastructure of the sensible’, featuring, amongst others, Beatrice Leanza, Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, Formafantasma, Izaskun Chinchilla and David Gianotten of OMA. How were the themes of the talks structured? Do you think any useful ideas emerged for the development of artistic and architectural practice?
At the Querini, architecture is the very subject of the conversation. A building constructed in the early 16th century, which has since undergone four major architectural interventions: by Carlo Scarpa, Valeriano Pastor, Mario Botta and Michele De Lucchi. The Foundation is not merely the venue where the series of talks takes place. It is the talk itself. It is the physical embodiment of what Reframing Culture has sought to explore through the testimonies of those who practise architecture—aware of their role in forging connections between time and space, between memory and the present, between those who have inhabited a place and those who will inhabit it, and between the world as it was, as it is, and as it will be. An architecture that is also the ‘infrastructure of the sensible’, the condition of possibility for experience. The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement awarded by the Architecture Biennale to Donna Haraway celebrates architecture as an open work, capable of constructing ecologies and developing intelligences of survival: everything Haraway has written over the past decades, from A Cyborg Manifesto to Staying with the Trouble, permeates the work of architects, designers and urban planners in more or less explicit ways. Haraway’s insistence on staying with the problem, on not evading the question—remaining within the sprawling thought that grasps complex relationships rather than attempting to simplify them, can be read as ethics of architecture. Living in deeply troubled times means surviving amidst discomfort: coexisting with ruins is a radical alternative to that extractivist logic which builds by destroying, develops by erasing, and plans for the future as if the past had no right to endure, as if every new construction first required a clean slate, an erasure, a silence. Architecture does not merely build from scratch: it repairs, adds, recycles, and reinterprets. And the oldest and most intelligent model of this practice is the architecture of reuse, that medieval tradition, far from being poor, which took fragments of the ancient world and reused them in new contexts: columns from pagan temples becoming naves of Christian churches, capitals of one order within another, marble from one empire within the walls of a new city. Recycling suggests that the material has a longer life than the function for which it was produced, and that the form survives the original meaning and can generate a new one without erasing the previous. It was ahead of its time and a very contemporary ecological concept. Ultimately, architecture that endures is not that which resists the ravages of time, but that which allows time to pass through it. The architecture added and juxtaposed of the Querini Stampalia carries with it a layered memory; time is always an interlocutor.

The Querini Stampalia Foundation places great emphasis on accessibility, specifically intersectional accessibility. Examples of this include the ALLiS. Design for All project, developed in collaboration with La Sapienza University of Rome, Mercatorum University, Federico II University of Naples and IUAV University of Venice, and the projects for expectant mothers, parents and newborns in collaboration with ULLS 3 and S-cambio, with the participation of Artismo. Do you believe that this can and should be an approach adopted by all museums?
“Intersectional accessibility” is a radical redefinition of the very concept of accessibility. The term intersectionality was coined in 1989 by the legal scholar and activist Kimberlé Crenshaw, and her fundamental insight is as simple as it is revolutionary: discrimination and forms of exclusion never operate in isolation, but are intertwined and overlap: gender, race, class, disability, age, sexual orientation and nationality produce forms of marginalisation that cannot be understood by looking at just one of these categories at a time. The metaphor Crenshaw uses is that of an intersection: just as at a junction,traffic flows in all directions and accidents can be the result of several vehicles colliding, so too can discrimination not be understood by considering a single category in isolation, but only by viewing each of them as interconnected. Applied to the museum, this theory has specific and awkward implications. This means that accessibility is not merely a technical issue, a ramp, a lift, a tactile paving path, but a structural issue concerning who can enter, who feels represented, who finds something in this space that relates to them, and who has the right and the practical means to participate in cultural life. The discussion on social inclusion no longer concerns only physical access, but broader issues of representation, respect, power-sharing and social justice. Richard Sandell, one of the topic’s most authoritative theorists, posed a specific question: to what extent do museums or cultural institutions shape the normative understanding of difference, acceptability and tolerance? True accessibility must be addressed through design that works for everyone, and the fundamental insight of Design for All is that what is designed for those with specific needs: the person in a wheelchair, the mother with a pushchair, the person with a cognitive disability, the elderly person, improves the experience for everyone. The difference between accessibility as compliance and accessibility as care is essential here. I believe that all institutions should adopt these practices, but on one non-negotiable condition: that they do so authentically, rooted in the real needs of their community.

John Baldessari. No Stone Unturned – Conceptual Photography. A project by Cristiana Collu in collaboration with the Estate of John Baldessari, John Baldessari Family Foundation and Sprüth Magers. Photo credits: Adriano Mura. Courtesy: Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice

CRISTIANA COLLU’S POINT OF VIEW

Since your arrival at the Querini Stampalia Foundation, the museum’s image has undergone a complete rebranding, which has also been welcomed on social media. To what extent has this success influenced public engagement?
Let’s start with a necessary distinction, because the word ‘rebranding’ is one of the most overused terms in contemporary language. In its most superficial sense, it refers to a change of logo, colour palette or font, a ‘restyling.’ In a deeper sense, it refers to something radically different: the redefinition of an organisation’s identity in terms of how it presents itself to the world, the language it uses to tell its story, and the promise it makes to its audience. The brand is not the logo; it concerns the experience and the vision. The difference between the two approaches is fundamental. A ‘restyling’ changes the surface without touching the structure. Authentic ‘rebranding’, on the other hand, is a metamorphosis: the construction of a new relationship between the institution and the world, which, to be credible, must start from within and generate institutional credibility. The new visual identity was created by the graphic design studio Designwork and is based on two new original typefaces and a clean, recognisable aesthetic. The visual grammar is the result of a decision about what the Foundation wants to be and communicate. The billboard campaign in Venetian, Davide Rivalta’s installation of the Lions in the Square and Martí Guixé’s Q Spot were the application of these declarations of intent, followed by the Giovanni Bookshop, Cafè Mariona and the cultural programme: in essence, the construction of an ecosystem in which every single element or action contributes to defining the institution’s identity and purpose.

Compared to other institutions you have led, what are the peculiarities of a historic Foundation in a city like Venice?
Venice resists definition. Whenever anyone tries to sum it up in a single sentence, it slips away like water. Guy de Maupassant wondered: “Is there a city more revered, more celebrated, more serenaded by poets, more coveted by lovers? Is there a name in human language that has made people dream more than this?” And Nietzsche, who was certainly no sentimental: “When I seek another word for ‘music’, I never find any other word than Venice”. Aldo Manuzio: “A place more like a whole world than a city”. It is from this excess, from this luxury, that we must start to understand what it means to run an institution here. In Venice, memory is a living archive, a document, a monument, a text, and an image. Iosif Brodskij had seen it: “The vertical lines of Venetian façades are the most beautiful mark that time ‒ or rather, water ‒ has left on the mainland, anywhere in the world. It is as though space, more aware here than anywhere else of its own inferiority to time, were to respond to it with the one quality that time does not possess: beauty”. And Nietzsche, again: “A hundred profound solitudes together form the city of Venice; this is its enchantment. An image for the men of the future”. This is where Giovanni Querini Stampalia comes in, our hero, my hero. He was born on 5 May 1799, the last descendant of one of the oldest families of the Venetian aristocracy. He lived through the 19th century in its entirety, what Eric Hobsbawm called the long century: an era that began with the French Revolution of 1789 and ended on the eve of the World War I in 1914, more than 120 years in which everything we call modernity, science, industry, democracy, nationalism, capitalism, socialism, took shape, clashed, and exploded. Giovanni Querini was a child of that era: he embodied its contradictions, its passions, its marvellous openness to the future and the dark omens of what was soon to come. He realised that the world had changed and, whilst not renouncing his noble origins, he distanced himself from them. He stubbornly refused to marry. He was a man free to choose what to do with his inheritance, his life and his time. And the choices he made were radical. Driven by his passion for science, he set up a laboratory for chemical and physical experiments at his palace and conducted the city’s first experiments in public electric lighting. He was a patron of the arts: he donated modern equipment for diagnostics and treatment to the hospital; he supported the Veneto Institute of Sciences, Letters and Arts and the Ateneo Veneto, of which he was president. In 1861, he brought to Venice a French machine for treating the sick. In 1868, he bequeathed an anatomical collection to the Veneto Institute to further the dissemination of medical knowledge. He established prizes for agricultural research. He was a man of his time: curious, versatile, open-minded, and convinced that knowledge is a common good. In his will of 11 December 1868, he bequeathed his estate to the newly established Querini Stampalia Foundation, ‘designed to promote the pursuit of good studies and useful disciplines’, so that the library (which stays open late), the gallery, the medal collection and the works of art in the palace in San Zaccaria might become available for public use. An extraordinarily modern vision, almost a manifesto of cultural democracy ahead of its time. In 1869, Giovanni Querini’s new life began because the library, the gallery, the palace, everything he had loved and cherished, belonged from that moment on to the city. He established that the Foundation is not a static archive or a refuge from history, but a space capable of bringing together Venice and the world, tradition and the contemporary, the generations that pass and those to come. This is what sets the Querini apart from any other institution I have led. You do not merely manage a legacy; you live in constant dialogue with Giovanni. Every decision is, to some extent, a response to his generous and far-sighted gesture, to his dream for the future.

The Dreamer, exhibition view, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice 2026. The Time room, Sogno infrangibile, 2013, by Daniela De Lorenzo. Photo Adriano Mura. Courtesy: Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice

THE ART SYSTEM AND THE FUTURE

How would you define the art system today?
To define is to draw a boundary, and this is precisely the act that the art system continually does to itself, with consequences that are anything but innocent. The word ‘system’ carries with it a promise of coherence, functionality, and stability that is illusory: relationships are unstable, and the codes that present themselves as universal have never been so. A hyper-connected yet simultaneously fragmented system, more reactive than reflective, which produces visibility without duration but which, precisely for this reason, gives rise within itself to practices that work against the logic of saturation. If I must use two further adjectives, I would choose ‘extractivist’ and ‘amnesic,’ knowing that they are partial; indeed, I use them precisely for this reason, because they create friction, because they are only partly true. The contemporary art system attempts to diversify but nevertheless functions as a network of distributed and mutually dependent validation: artists, galleries, fairs, collectors, critics, curators, museums, foundations, and biennials. Each of these nodes needs the others to produce value. Value does not pre-exist the system: it is the system that decrees and produces it. This captures precisely what Bourdieu conceptualised as symbolic capital and what Steyerl has described in more radical terms: a system of value organised through decentralised networks that operates asynchronously. The art world survives because of an economy of negation of the economy. The artist who works ‘against the system’ commands a remarkably high value on the symbolic market of radicalism, which is then converted into economic value. Anti-system is a position within the system. It means that the system can contain criticism without being destabilised by it; indeed, it draws strength from criticism, which makes it more complex, richer, and harder to attack. Criticism is the fuel of legitimisation. In short, the system cannot reform itself using its own tools, not because it is immobile, but because its tools transform every attempt at reform into an element of the system itself. Yet there is a qualitative difference between the possible positions within the system. Not all nodes in the network perform the same function, not all institutions have the same structure, not all practices produce the same effects. But those who act consciously within the system, knowing its structure, refusing to confuse the action with the result, keeping open the question of what remains irreducible to that logic, can produce, in that space of friction, something that the system cannot fully name, not an alternative but a difference and, better still, a defection.

What are your next goals? Have you achieved all the ones you set at the start of your term?
There is a distinction that Mariana Mazzucato has brought to the forefront of contemporary economic debate: that between ‘value extraction’ and ‘value creation.’ Extractive management optimises what already exists, redistributes value that has already been produced, and measures results over the short term. Creative management creates the conditions to generate value over the long term, investing in infrastructure, knowledge and institutional capacity assets that are not immediately visible, but which endure. I chose the second path. The programme’s goals were clear, measurable, and ambitious. We, and I use the plural meaning the team, have achieved and exceeded them; this was by no means a foregone conclusion in such a brief time. But what I believe is most interesting is the management framework I have built to make them possible. I approached my intervention on the building in these terms: not merely as restoration or functional adaptation, but as a new and progressive way of inhabiting a building that possessed, and still possesses, layers of meaning yet to be explored. We worked on the ground floor and third floor in the first year, so the immediate focus was on reception, services, exhibition space, and on the osmotic way in which the city enters and the foundation reaches outwards. Carlo Scarpa docet. This year it was the turn of the second floor with The Dreamer, the reorganisation of the collection, and the first floor with the start of the library renovation, which is scheduled to begin in the coming months. Next year we will focus on the fourth floor and on completing the first. A stratigraphic logic, based on chiasmus rather than a linear sequence, in constant negotiation between what the architecture of the Querini was, is, and might be. I have placed Giovanni Querini at the centre, his story, and his vision as an open question, not merely to commemorate, but to trigger in the present what remained pending in the past. The Foundation’s collection is not an inventory: it is a system of relationships ready to be reinterpreted and to sing. Our library is our schedule, the infinite infrastructure of possibilities. My approach, and not just my way of practising museology, is out of joint, off the hinges, not at all orthogonal or orthodox, like almost everything in Venice. I am interested in real transformations, the radical aspect of things; I am already living the dream, that of things we imagine and which then become reality. The Querini Stampalia is ready to face the next 150 years above sea level. This is not a metaphor: it is reality. High tide is not merely a physical challenge for Venice and the rest of the world. It is an epistemological challenge: it forces us to think differently about duration, to build on foundations that will hold firm in spite of ‒ and through ‒ the lopsided precariousness of a city for which it is difficult to find superlative adjectives that do it justice.

Rebecca Canavesi

The Querini Stampalia Foundation in Venice

Area Carlo Scarpa, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice. Photo Adriano Mura. Courtesy: Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice
Carlo Scarpa’s Garden, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice. Photo Adriano Mura. Courtesy: Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice
Library, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice. Photo Adriano Mura. Courtesy: Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice
Davide Rivalta, Leoni in campo, Venice. Photo Adriano Mura. Courtesy: Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice
Davide Rivalta, Leoni in campo, Venice. Photo Adriano Mura. Courtesy: Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice
John Baldessari. No Stone Unturned – Conceptual Photography. A project by Cristiana Collu in collaboration with the Estate of John Baldessari, John Baldessari Family Foundation and Sprüth Magers. Photo credits: Adriano Mura. Courtesy: Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice
John Baldessari. No Stone Unturned – Conceptual Photography. A project by Cristiana Collu in collaboration with the Estate of John Baldessari, John Baldessari Family Foundation and Sprüth Magers. Photo credits: Adriano Mura. Courtesy: Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice
The Dreamer, exhibition view, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice 2026. The Time room, Sogno infrangibile, 2013, by Daniela De Lorenzo. Photo Adriano Mura. Courtesy: Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice
The Dreamer, exhibition view, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice 2026. Intimacy room, detail of the work Scimpanzé, 2026, by Davide Rivalta. Photo Adriano Mura. Courtesy: Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice
Cristiana Collu. Photo Adriano Mura
by

Rebecca Canavesi

June 11 · 26
The responsibilities of contemporary curating: an interview with Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti

IT

From her reflections on supporting artists’ rights, to her engagement with radical figures such as Lee Lozano, Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti’s perspective places at its center questions of social justice, precarity, accessibility, and critical integrity, highlighting how curatorship today is inevitably intertwined with the cultural, economic, and ideological tensions that run through the present.

Curator and writer, Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti (Desenzano del Garda, 1990) is currently Head Curator at the Istituto Svizzero in Italy, where she curates the artistic program of the Rome, Milan, and Palermo venues. She previously served as Chief Curator at Pinacoteca Agnelli in Turin, contributing to the redefinition of its mission in conjunction with its reopening in 2022. She curated exhibitions and institutional programs in Italy and abroad, working with artists such as Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Sylvie Fleury, Mark Leckey, Nan Goldin and Nina Beier, among others. Throughout her career, she has also curated the New Entries section of Artissima (2018-2019) and the main exhibition of the 6th International Biennale for Young Art in Moscow (2018). She has worked at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo as curator and head of the Young Curators Residency Programme, a research residency for international curators selected from leading curatorial schools worldwide. She co-founded CLOG Projects, an independent space oriented toward research and experimentation, and she is the co-founder and vice-president of AWI Art Workers Italia, the first association created to advocate for and support art workers in Italy. By moving between independent practices and institutional contexts, her experience allows for an internal interrogation of the contradictions and possibilities of the contemporary art system.

Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti. Photo Federico Masini per Evergreen Design House

In his 2006 essay Notes from the Field: Early Globalism, Museum Residencies and Artists as Mediators, artist Ernesto Pujol wrote: “This is the age of the curator: everybody wants to be a curator”. Do you believe this reflection is still valid today?
I doubt that curating is as widely desirable today. Twenty years ago, it possessed an aura tied to the promise of an independent and radical vision, accompanied by a healthy dose of prestige and (cultural) power. And this narrative was partially true, at least for a while. Let’s consider the history of major international exhibitions and the role they played in shaping a global cultural and political discourse, or the artistic direction of research-driven institutions that served as international benchmarks for many years. These models are now in a deep crisis. For instance, documenta has carried out a progressive decentralization of curatorial power through collective or shared curating, instituted mechanisms of preventive censorship, and chosen not to defend the artistic or curatorial vision when under attack, thereby abdicating its role as a guarantor. On the other hand, artistic directorships are often short-term appointments, a condition that makes it difficult to trigger structural institutional transformations, while decision-making is increasingly centralized in the hands of boards of directors and administrative figures created ad hoc. The curatorial vision or the artistic direction are almost seen as a nuisance to the ordinary running of the institution’s business. And it must be said that this is not entirely incorrect either, because within the curatorial figure coexist both belonging to and misalignment with the institution, and that is precisely where its importance lies: it is a fundamental role of negotiation within the structures on which the production of contemporary art is built. This makes the profession look far less like the glamorous intellectual role once associated with curating in Pujol’s time, and more like a comb that constantly catches everyone else’s knots.

THE CURATORIAL PRACTICE ACCORDING TO LUCREZIA CALABRÒ VISCONTI

Today, there are numerous training programs dedicated to curating. You participated in the De Appel Curatorial Programme in Amsterdam, in CAMPO at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, and in the CCC ‒ Critical Curatorial Cybermedia Master at HEAD in Geneva. What role do you attribute to these courses in the training of a curator? Is curating truly a practice that can be taught?
Curating can and must be taught, especially in a field like ours where improvisation ‒ both in the sense of adapting to ever-changing dynamics and in the sense of pretending to be something you are not ‒ is so common. Romanticizing the curator as a sort of agent who operates by infused knowledge ultimately risks endorsing forms of approximation and incompetence. Of course, there is originality of thought, inspiration, and vision, but just like in all “creative” jobs, these traits must be trained and substantiated. Curating is now a discipline with its own reference literature, case studies to look to, specific skills to acquire, and a precise language to use, refine, and transform. It is a complex job with a rather serious responsibility, given that exhibitions and public programs are the primary way art is historicized, and considering that the organisations we work for are reaching an ever-wider audience. So, curatorial programs are very welcome, as they help to build a solid theoretical foundation and contribute to creating communities ‒ even if the technical, administrative, and political skills of the job are often acquired on the field. The real problem with these programs is that many of them (I am thinking of those in the UK or US especially, but also of private universities in Italy) are extremely expensive, and thus inaccessible to most people. This is detrimental both to the profession’s credibility and to the general trend towards elitism in the sector that we are currently witnessing. Fortunately, there are still opportunities to train without getting into debt, but the lack of accessibility is certainly an issue we need to address.

What skills do you consider fundamental for anyone wanting to embark on a curatorial career today? What advice would you give to an emerging curator?
There are many important skills required in this job, but one that perhaps takes a back seat during training is an understanding of one’s role as a cultural, political and social agent. To expand on what I said in my first answer, here is a specific example: let’s think about how the tragic absence of curator Koyo Kouoh at this Venice Biennale contributed to its crisis, leaving a lack of an authoritative reference point to protect the project’s vision, demand integrity from the institution, and guarantee awareness of the political role that the Biennale has always had. I wonder to what extent what happened ‒ the resignation of the jury, the first major coordinated strike of pavilions and artists since 1968, their refusal to submit to the so-called “Audience’s Golden Lion” ‒ would have been different if Kouoh had been present. This is just the most striking example that comes to mind today, but curating is inevitably intertwined with very different goals and agendas, and it often takes on the burden of understanding how, under given conditions, to build a conscious, urgent, and critical discourse. I would suggest to an emerging curator to carefully evaluate whether this side of the job interests them or not, because the risk is ending up enduring it instead of directing it.

Art Workers Italia (AWI), of which you are a co-founder and vice president, was created to give recognition and protection to cultural work. Six years after the launch of AWI, do you believe that working in the arts is more legitimized today compared to the past?
Yes and no. I believe that, within the sector in Italy, awareness and recognition of work in the contemporary art world have improved, partly thanks to the tools we have developed and the awareness-raising work we have carried out with Art Workers Italia. For instance, no institution today would even think of inviting an artist without paying them, whereas that was the norm until a few years ago. Due to guidelines, minimum fee charts, support groups, templates of contracts, vademecums, sector surveys, educational meetings in schools, letters to the Ministry, letters to institutions, demonstrations, petitions, manifestos, work on calls for proposals, local, national and international working groups, and so on and so forth, I believe we are in a healthier place than we were when we started. That being said, globally, working conditions ‒ especially in the cultural sphere ‒ are increasingly precarious, and politics seems more and more disconnected from the dynamics of our work and its importance. Meanwhile, the genocide in Palestine and the connivance or helplessness of a large part of cultural institutions in the face of the catastrophic global political situation has shifted our attention toward emergencies other than just the issue of labor protection. This year, the new board of Art Workers Italia will be voted in, and I believe it is an important moment to look at the goals achieved and understand what the new ones should be, and what alliances and struggles to engage in within the changed political and social context we find ourselves in.

Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, how we always survived, Installation view, Istituto Svizzero, Rome, 2025. Photo Annik Wetter

LUCREZIA CALABRÒ VISCONTI AND THE ART SYSTEM

In Qual è il tuo vero lavoro? (What is your real job?), a text published for Diario italiano (Fondazione Imago Mundi), you highlighted how, in the art system, the need to combine various jobs is increasingly widespread. Has this condition changed in recent years, or has it simply become normalized? What difficulties did you personally have to face?
That text dates back to 2021, when I was asked to write a statement to accompany a survey of Italian art. I decided to draw attention to the working conditions of artists, and especially the fact that, for a lot of people, their artistic practice was secondary to other jobs (79% according to the sector survey we conducted with AWI in the same year). My point was that this was a structural issue with significant consequences, such as less ambitious projects, poorer media, intermittent activities, and difficulties travelling abroad, and that it should therefore be taken into account in the artistic and aesthetic analysis of the works. I fear that the data, although the situation has improved from several points of view, would not look too different today. Regarding the difficulties I had to face, I believe they are the same as everyone who does not come from a privileged background (there are more of us than it seems). Becoming economically independent as quickly as possible was essential for me, and the reason I got interested in curating was that it seemed like a more solid job than others to achieve that goal ‒ while being able to work within the cultural field, which I knew was what I wanted to do. Needless to say, it was not that simple. For many years, I accompanied the projects I did as an independent curator with two or three parallel jobs (various assistant roles, project management, coordination, publishing, journalism, teaching, sometimes ghost-curating and ghost-writing). I was lucky because these were all para-curatorial activities, and in the end, even now that I hold institutional positions, I continue to write and teach (the type of security that working for an institution gives you is almost always temporary anyway, so it is hard for me to imagine leaving the rest of the things I do).

Contemporary art fairs like Artissima, where you curated the New Entries section in 2018 and 2019, act as platforms that accelerate visibility and the circulation of value. What room is there today to maintain a critical distance or introduce forms of resistance without being immediately absorbed by the logic of the system?
I believe that fairs, especially their “emerging” sections, are not a real threat to the integrity of artists’ work – certainly not Italian fairs, which operate on a reduced scale and influence. If the biggest problem facing Italian art were that its massive commercial success were jeopardising artists’ autonomy, that would be a wonderful problem to have! Besides, fairs with a strong curatorial direction, such as Artissima, often succeed primarily at the level of institutional circulation, thanks to the curatorial juries participating in the fair, museum acquisitions, and the museum directors and curators who attend. The fair structure should therefore be understood in continuity with the rest of the sector. In fact, I believe one of the key issues is precisely dismantling the idea – still very much alive – that the economic health of the system can rest exclusively on the buying and selling of works by private collectors, when so few artists manage to sustain themselves solely through the sale of their work. Take, for instance, the 5% VAT rate on artworks, introduced last year after a long period of lobbying. It is an important achievement, which closes the gap that existed between Italy and other European countries and provides relief to galleries that are themselves in serious difficulty (as the worrying number of closures and bankruptcies in recent years makes clear). Yet this measure has often been described as one that was implemented in order to support artists. This is misleading, because even in the best-case scenario, where it might generate a virtuous cycle that ends up actually supporting some artists, it essentially delegates to the collector the power to support (or not) the weakest actors in the sector, through a trickle-down mechanism. And this is without even considering that Italian artists represented by a gallery in Italy make up a minimal percentage of the total. I don’t want to be misunderstood: it’s great that this measure exists, it will certainly give some breathing room to the economies revolving around collecting, and will reach some artists too ‒ but it cannot substitute for a serious, structural project in support of artists. What is needed are direct forms of support, inclusive and sustained forms of redistribution, and above all, funding that does not depend on the interests or tastes of individuals. There are many case studies abroad worth looking to for examples, but I won’t go into them here otherwise this will turn into an essay.

Is the concept of the “emerging” artist still useful, or does it risk being a category functional to market dynamics? How much space really exists for non-aligned practices within an art fair?
The concept of “emerging” is not only used in a commercial context, but also in an institutional one, and especially in the design of policies and forms of support (often calls for funding, residencies, and training opportunities have an age limit). It is a principle that considers a person’s professional growth as progressive and linear, based on the assumption that after a certain age there is not gonna be any need for support Yet, in the precarious field of contemporary art, there is an ever-widening gap between a person’s anagraphical age and the circumstances in which they find themselves. In Switzerland, for example, the attempt often being made is to find other formulas, such as “within X years from the end of training”. Personally, I wouldn’t disdain ‒ especially in the case of financial support ‒ a more realistic reasoning based on the type of production and the income the artist can derive from it (do they make hundreds of canvases a year and have a gallery, or do they make immaterial, non-sellable site-specific work?), the context in which they operate (in a city or a peripheral context, how many other forms of support are available to them), and, quite simply, the real condition of financial security a person is in. But I realize that this position is too socialist for many of the committees and juries I find myself working in (the filter of social justice is often not considered very sexy). In the commercial sphere, the concept of “emerging” has a different meaning, as it is used in terms of investment, perception of how much the work should cost, and the stability or instability of the artist’s practice. I believe the answer is not to eliminate the category entirely, but rather to ensure that the artist’s path is protected despite the category ‒ which perhaps brings us back to what you mean by “forms of resistance”: through the gallery’s choice of presenting a consistent form of the work (without asking the artist to distort it to make it more market-friendly); maintaining an appropriate valuation of the work (no fire sales, no secondary market flipping); controlling where the work ends up (a reliable and prestigious private collection, a museum collection); modulating the pace of the artist’s career growth; properly contracting the production of works, and so on. The space for “non-aligned” practices, on the other hand, depends a lot on the vision of the fair’s direction and the selection committee in encouraging them or not, and primarily on the risk the gallery wants to take regarding its target collectors. At the root of it all should be an education towards collecting experimental and radical work, and consequently, an education in contemporary art and a critical gaze that starts in schools, but here we risk getting a bit far from your point…

Gina Fischli and Gianfranco Baruchello in Con lo zucchero in bocca, Installation view, Istituto Svizzero, Rome, 2025. Photo Daniele Molajoli

ITALY AND SWITZERLAND: A COMPARISON

You mentioned how the Swiss system differs in the way it supports cultural production. With regard to your work at the Istituto Svizzero, how do these differences manifest themselves compared to the Italian context, particularly in terms of working conditions for artists?
The system of support for cultural production in Switzerland is structural and widespread: public support operates at national (federal), regional (cantonal) and municipal levels, with various types of funding – ranging from project-based grants to annual grants for artists, to funding for the production of new works or for their circulation and distribution (dissemination), as well as for residencies, research and publications. Private support is much more common and, above all, is largely formalized through procedures that make it more transparent, straightforward and inclusive than is the case in Italy. You have a project, you apply for funding, a committee assesses the project, you receive the funds. Full stop. The Italian system is often personalized, more akin to a vision of charity or patronage (but without the long-standing culture of philanthropy that exists in the United States, for example, so it’s still a bit skewed). Working conditions are very different as a result, although they are by no means resolved (there are problems inherent in the way artistic work operates which, even in Switzerland, make it precarious for the artists). In relation to my work at the Istituto Svizzero, this means developing a program based on a healthier environment, where artists can devote themselves to their work with greater peace of mind and independence, and can afford to take more risks in their research; it is also more international, as Switzerland is attractive to people from abroad; and, fundamentally, it is underpinned by the confidence that comes from institutions genuinely valuing culture and the contemporary arts.

Your curatorial practice often interacts with radical figures, as in the case of Lee Lozano at the Pinacoteca Agnelli in Turin and the Pinault Collection in Paris. How did you manage the tension between the need to historicize such an iconoclastic artist and the risk of “institutionalizing” an artistic gesture that wanted to escape the system?
In the context of the exhibition, the way I decided to account for Lozano’s ambivalent position regarding the structures of the contemporary art system was to frame the narrative of her practice starting from General Strike Piece, her first strike against art, in 1969. The “piece” ‒which is a handwritten sheet later reproduced in several copies, in which Lozano declares that from that moment on she will no longer participate in “art ceremonies” to dedicate herself solely to a form of “private and public revolution” ‒ was located at the entrance of the exhibitions both in Turin and Paris, and gave them their title, Strike. The idea was for it to establish a fundamental premise but also a methodological principle through which to view the exhibition. Another choice was to give space (in the booklet in Turin and physically in Paris) to her written conceptual production, which I believe does justice to her thought more than any form of mediation – yet, in any case, I am sure some open contradictions certainly remained. After the 2023 and 2024 exhibitions, I had the opportunity to continue working on her by writing the book Lee Lozano. In the studio, and at that point, the questions multiplied on how to respect her thought ‒ starting from the fact that from 1972 she stopped speaking to women, so I asked myself many times how she would take my writing about her. Regarding the institutionalization of a gesture that wanted to escape the system, however, I feel rather at peace, because the alternative was not leaving a radical work in a radical context, but leaving a radical work on the walls of the homes of a large number of collectors who purchased it. Temporarily removing the works from these private homes to exhibit them in spaces open to the public, and by doing so including them into a more coherent narrative of the artist’s work and giving them the chance to continue shocking and radicalizing other people, would, in my opinion, have made Lozano less angry than leaving them sitting around on livingrooms’ walls.

How does the desire to reclaim a critical and political discourse through art manifest itself in practice? What does it mean for you to take a stand as a curator?
I believe that every person carries a political posture, which manifests itself in the choices they make, the way they interact with people, and their contribution and adherence to certain lifestyles rather than others. Working in a field where what you do has a public resonance amplifies your responsibility toward that political posture, as simple as that. For me, it has always been very natural to bring and support critical positions regarding what I feel does not work in the world ‒ positions influenced by transfeminism, the defense of social justice, a critical discourse on contemporary forms of colonialism and imperialism, and the hegemonic forms of capitalism. This does not mean I am only interested in militant research; these are positions that can be expressed in a myriad of different ways, and I have also worked on projects that look at entirely different things, but it is true that there is tendentially a certain political undercurrent in what I do. That said, “taking a stand” lies in what we as curators decide to program, but it also and foremost lies in the way we work and act in the world.

Have you ever felt radically changed after working with an artist? Is there a specific encounter or relationship that acted as a turning point, marking a before and after in your career?
Sometimes, when I talk about my work, especially to a class of curatorial students, I start from a concept that has always been very close to my heart, which is that of metanoia. It is a term that Armen Avanessian and Anke Hennig borrow from the mystical sphere to apply it to reading: metanoia describes a profound and irreversible change in a person’s way of thinking, which can occur, for example, through reading a book. I have always recognized myself in this definition, thinking about how there have been many encounters that have marked me, both with people and also with books, artworks, and exhibitions that radically changed my view of the reality around me. And every time I build a project, or write a text, I have the hope that it could be a metanoic experience for someone else in turn, marking a before and after in their vision of things. There are really many metanoic encounters I could list in my journey. Perhaps the most recent is with the work of Ida Applebroog, on whom I am writing an essay for Fruitmarket in Edinburgh. What stays with me most from her reflection, I think, is the analysis of the relationship between feminism and humor (often absent at the time she was writing, in the 1970s), and the way this tension emerges in her work in an absolutely dark, hilarious, and perverse way.

Paola Caudullo

https://www.istitutosvizzero.it

Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, how we always survived, Installation view, Istituto Svizzero, Rome, 2025. Photo Annik Wetter
Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, how we always survived, Installation view, Istituto Svizzero, Rome, 2025. Photo Annik Wetter
Oderbolz and Milva Stutz in Con lo zucchero in bocca, Installation view, Istituto Svizzero, Rome, 2025. Photo Daniele Molajoli
Gina Fischli and Gianfranco Baruchello in Con lo zucchero in bocca, Installation view, Istituto Svizzero, Rome, 2025. Photo Daniele Molajoli
Lee Lozano, Strike, Installation view, La Bourse ‒ Pinault Collection, Paris, 2023. Photo Aurélien Mole / Pinault Collection
Lee Lozano, Strike, Installation view, La Bourse ‒ Pinault Collection, Paris, 2023. Photo Aurélien Mole / Pinault Collection
Gonzalez-Foerster, Installation view, PISTARAMA, Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin, 2024. Photo Sebastiano Pellion di Persano
Gonzalez-Foerster, Installation view, PISTARAMA, Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin, 2024. Photo Sebastiano Pellion di Persano
Latefa Wiersch, ATLAS STUDIOS, Installation view, Istituto Svizzero, Rome, 2026. Photo Daniele Molajoli
Latefa Wiersch, ATLAS STUDIOS, Installation view, Istituto Svizzero, Rome, 2026. Photo Daniele Molajoli
Gabriele Garavaglia & Miriam Laura Leonardi, Deadline With The World, Installation view, Istituto Svizzero, Milan, 2025. Photo Giulio Böem
Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti. Photo Federico Masini per Evergreen Design House
by

Paola Caudullo

June 4 · 26
Research, experimentation and relationships in bruno’s editorial practice

IT

An exhibition space, bookshop, publishing imprint and graphic design studio based in Venice, bruno tells its story through the voices of its founders, who reflect on the role of unpredictability and error as generative elements in the creative process. Through concrete examples and references to collaborative practices, working methodologies emerge that intertwine the material production of books, content curation and the construction of an ongoing dialogue with local and international communities.

Andrea Codolo and Giacomo Covacich are the creators of bruno, a Venetian studio that, since 2013, has combined the logic of graphic and editorial design with that of the exhibition space, establishing collaborations with artists and local and international institutions. We interviewed them.

bruno Andrea Codolo e Giacomo Covacich, Venezia 2019
foto © Matteo de Mayda

Let’s start with the name bruno, which seems capable of referring to many things at once. Among these is also the bear, a figure that appears more or less explicitly in your communication. For you, is it one of the many possible natures of the project, a narrative key, or a presence that more radically shapes your way of working?
Andrea Codolo: The process of choosing the name was quite complex. We were looking for something that would not be too strongly associated with only one aspect of the activity we wanted to establish, so from the beginning our project was conceived in its multiple natures. We liked the idea that it could be a somewhat ambiguous, perhaps even old-fashioned name; bruno is also an adjective, a shade of color, perhaps a little gloomy. It is a simple word for the audience we have always wanted to address, which is not exclusively Italian but also international. That is how bruno came into being. Then, when we opened the shop, we put a teddy bear in the window that a friend had given us, and from that moment people kept giving us more. We became collectors of teddy bears of all kinds and it became a mascot. In reality, it also helps us, especially in online communication, to be less serious and not take ourselves too seriously.

Your space in the center of Venice is at once a workshop, a bookshop, an exhibition venue and a place of passage. Do these different identities interact naturally with one another or do they sometimes coexist in a productive tension?
Giacomo Covacich: The name intentionally reflects the possibility of embracing multiple dynamics. Obviously, the project is still evolving: when we opened, we were a graphic design studio and a bookshop, then after a year and a half we started publishing. The space aims to embrace and be contaminated by this degree of uncertainty, by this unpredictable variable. It is something we sought out, but at times also endured. Sometimes it is difficult to manage, while at other times it is highly productive. There are moments when we are working and, at the same time, presentations are taking place; everything is very open, there is no real control. But this has also allowed us to meet stimulating and interesting people. It is a variable that, at first, we merely theorized, and then experienced in our daily lives. Over time, we learned to transform this unpredictability into an added value.

BRUNO’S PROJECTS

In your projects, craftsmanship often coexists with technical experimentation, particularly in the fields of printing and independent publishing. How do these elements relate to one another?
Giacomo Covacich: There is certainly, as you say, a somewhat artisanal component. We consider ourselves designers in every sense of the word: we want to work in harmony with all tools, both digital and production-oriented, and then give ideas a concrete form. We really enjoy working with the book format and understanding how different types of binding and printing can best help enhance content. We always seek a very direct relationship between content and the graphic form of the project; in some respects, bruno is also a place of research for us, something we can draw from. Having access to a broad panorama of work by our colleagues is extremely stimulating. Everything here revolves around the book object, and this allows us to pursue theoretical research related to the profession. This applies to all the events and presentations we organize, as well as the books we produce. The goal is to balance different aspects, ranging from authorship to functionality.

Are there any processes that you have decided to explore and continue developing over time?Andrea Codolo: We enjoy experimenting on the technical side because it allows us to better understand the production process. We have an almost symbiotic relationship with Grafiche Veneziane, our main supplier. Almost all our books have been printed by them, and this allows us to engage with the production process in much greater detail. Going into the bindery, testing things on the printing press… These are all experiences that help us pay closer attention to both industrial and artisanal processes, while also advancing the research at the heart of our project.

In your experience, are there projects that originated from a production mistake, a leftover element, or an unforeseen circumstance?
Giacomo Covacich: I could say all of them and none of them.
Andrea Codolo: Mistakes are part of the game, and on some occasions something better than what we had imagined emerged from them. That said, given the type of work we do, errors are always a great source of suffering; we carry them with us forever. Even if you are mentally prepared and know they can happen, especially in publishing, it is still difficult. After all, a book without errors does not exist.

And when, in your opinion, does an error stop being something to correct and become perhaps a method, or even a recognizable feature of your work?
Giacomo Covacich: Thinking about errors and their capacity to generate creative deviations, there was a time when we wanted to produce a small book with a super glossy effect achieved through photographic development. In the end, we applied such a glossy lamination that the sheets would no longer stay still, and the bindery could not gather them because they kept slipping everywhere. Binding it was a nightmare. Another time, we accidentally cut off a flap, then stamped the books along the edge pretending it was a decorative edge treatment. The final result is beautiful, if you do not know the story behind it.

After all, very often only the final result remains visible from these processes.
Andrea Codolo: Exactly. Error is also a challenge: finding a way out of it and turning it into experience and memory so that it can be avoided in the future. Especially because it is not fun at all when it has economic consequences.

In this regard, is there any past work of yours that you would like to revisit today? Not necessarily to correct it, but perhaps to reinterpret it or take it in a different direction.
Giacomo Covacich: At the moment, no. What happens more often is that we have to deal with reprints, and in those cases we need to make choices, such as changing the paper because the second print run needs to be more economical than the first.
Andrea Codolo: Like all things in life, if I look back there are decisions we made with the awareness we had many years ago, and that awareness has changed over time. There have certainly been occasions when we thought, “This specific thing would have been perfect for that project,” but I think that is simply part of the experience one gains in every situation.

There’s No Calm After the Storm
Matteo de Mayda, bruno, Venezia 2024
foto © Matteo de Mayda

BRUNO AND VENICE

Era Mare stands as an emblematic project within your work, both for its theme and its methods. In the face of the high tide of 12 November 2019, you avoided direct reportage and instead constructed a fragile collective narrative that invites reflection on the city’s future. What urgencies prompted you to initiate it?
Andrea Codolo: Era Mare emerged from a dramatic and shocking event for everyone who was in Venice at that time, including us. In the end, our studio withstood the flooding very well, but we were closed inside it thinking about our own fortress and how to defend it, without realizing that we might have been able to help others. That was the emotional backdrop we carried with us in the weeks that followed.

How did the project develop in practical terms?
Giacomo Covacich: In the days that followed, we were among the few places that remained fully operational. This allowed us to host Matteo de Mayda, a dear friend and excellent photographer, who was documenting the situation in the city for several European newspapers. He spent his days photographing Venice and returned to us in the evenings to process and send the images. The idea arose from seeing the material Matteo was producing. We began thinking that we, too, could do something. Shortly before that, an association of residents and shopkeepers from Campo San Barnaba and Campo Santa Margherita had been established, and it seemed interesting to contribute with a project that narrated what was happening. Rather than focusing exclusively on the tragedy, we wanted to propose a perspective that was also constructive. That is how the project was born. We invented this particular format that allows you either to perceive the fragility of the situation or almost pretend nothing is happening. As you turn the pages, the photographs appear to show people playing with architecture, when in reality they are holding onto walls to move through the water. An intentionally unusual, almost dystopian text suggests a future in which water has become a permanent condition, where ground floors no longer exist and public squares are constantly flooded.

In what way does this curatorial gesture reflect your approach to publishing, where political positioning, care for relationships and formal experimentation coexist?
Giacomo Covacich: The project involved many people and reflected the spirit of that moment, a strong need for community and connection, a way of asking one another, “How are you? Do you need anything?” In this sense, the production process itself encouraged sharing. The outcome was very positive. We produced 750 copies, which were distributed through donations supporting the association.
Andrea Codolo: To facilitate its circulation, we also helped with communication, through social media and public presentations, contributing to the distribution of all the copies.
Giacomo Covacich: We raised more than €8,000, and with those funds we were able to install flood barriers for the most vulnerable places in the neighborhood. The project also received excellent media coverage; several newspapers talked about it, helping spread awareness. We produced it by trying to do the best possible work with the resources available, collaborating with a high-quality Venetian printer, using papers we had already employed in previous editions and not seeking to cut costs but rather aiming for the best possible result.

Era Mare is not an isolated case: many of your books emerge from relationships and dialogues with artists, designers, photographers and researchers. How important is curatorship in choosing who to involve and how to combine materials, images and texts?
Giacomo Covacich: For us, designing also means opening a dialogue, so understanding other people’s thinking is fundamental. The most interesting aspect of this profession is that you can engage in conversations and continue learning. For us, bruno is the key to creating connections with other realities working within the city and the territory. Over the past year we have collaborated with Simone Carraro, Amalgama, Tocia, Barena Bianca and others. Venice is where bruno was born and we chose to remain fully involved in it. Having a network is part of a vitality that is necessary not only commercially but also relationally. The goal is to have a space frequented by people who share our interests.

Dieci di bruno – Grafiche Veneziane, Venezia 2023
foto Grafiche Veneziane

DIALOGUE AND COLLABORATION ACCORDING TO BRUNO

During the latest Art Biennale, you presented for the third time a collaboration with UC Studio that took shape as Morning Rituals: an invitation to slow down, to come together in a deliberately non-productive moment through a collective breakfast. How did this experience interact with your daily practice?
Andrea Codolo: Morning Rituals has a clear impact on our daily practice. First of all, it makes us wake up earlier so that we are ready when guests arrive; moreover, it allows us to enjoy both the presentations and the collective breakfast. It is something we care deeply about, so much so that we will do it again this year. It allows us to invite people into a convivial setting while maintaining focus on what we are presenting. During the Biennale opening week, so much happens and there are always many events in the evening, so we were interested in finding a balance. We think it works.

If we think of bruno more as a practice than as a studio, what is the aspect you would defend even if it became unproductive, inefficient, or non-performative? Is there something that, precisely because it is fragile or not optimized, you consider essential to preserve?
Andrea Codolo: I would say the very essence of bruno. After all, the balance that emerges between an open space like a shop and a more private space like a studio contains certain fragilities, but it is also the essence of what we do. It would not work any other way; its added value is unpredictability.
Giacomo Covacich: There was a project that we later discovered had originated during an Architecture Biennale through meetings between curators of various pavilions who came here to browse books. Two years later they asked us to present the resulting publication and told us that bruno, entirely on its own, had acted as a catalyst for the project.The same applies to us: we like the idea that someone can come in, see interesting projects condensed into book form, and think, “I could do this with my own project,” thus beginning a new challenge.
Andrea Codolo: In a sense, it makes us very accessible. It creates opportunities that over time have become friendships, but also work opportunities. Of course, sometimes it also creates incredible annoyances because, just as an interesting person can walk in, so can a complete nuisance. In the end, even if we sometimes complain about it, we have become accustomed to it. It is part of the fragility and the essence of bruno.

Camilla Credendino

bruno

Lucia Marcucci. Tutto qui? Frida Carazzato, Francesca Verga (eds.) bruno, Venezia 2025 foto © Giacomo Bianco
Inhabited Dissonance: Bozen Bolzano 1922–2025 Roberto Gigliotti, Elisabetta Rattalino (eds.) bruno, Venezia 2025 foto © Giacomo Bianco
Lives Shaping Works Making Life Xavier Le Roy, Giulia Casartelli, Daniel Cordova, Livia Andrea Piazza (eds.) bruno, Venezia 2025 foto © Giacomo Bianco
There’s No Calm After the Storm Matteo de Mayda, bruno, Venezia 2024 foto © Matteo de Mayda
Era un cavallo elettrico Simone Carraro, bruno, Venezia 2025 foto © Giacomo Bianco
Dieci di bruno – Grafiche Veneziane, Venezia 2023 foto Grafiche Veneziane
bruno Andrea Codolo e Giacomo Covacich, Venezia 2019 foto © Matteo de Mayda
by

Camilla Credendino

June 4 · 26
Curating against erasure. An interview with Bukola Oyebode

IT

The Lagos-born independent curator, writer, and researcher Bukola Oyebode opens up about her research-driven curatorial practice, writing as a curatorial tool and her critical position towards this year’s Venice Biennale.

“Who came before us?” is a question that runs deeply throughout Bukola Oyebode’s curatorial research. Close to fifteen years in the contemporary art scene, she has developed a strong awareness of historical continuity and has made highlighting marginalised narratives a fundamental aspect of her practice. Working across Nigeria, Europe, and Asia, her projects perfectly combine writing, research, publishing and exhibition-making. Conscious of the responsibility curators hold towards artists, Oyebode’s work actively challenges forms of institutional hierarchy and erasure that so often manifest within the current global art system.

Bukola Oyebode. Photo credit: Wain Wu

In 2020 you were recognised with the Apollo 40 Under 40 Award. Apart from the recognition itself, do you reckon this award has helped shed more light on your curatorial practice, perhaps giving it greater visibility?
Absolutely. But I would like to say that this award mostly relates to my work in the editorial field, publishing about contemporary African art in the TSA Magazine, and my active involvement in the African art scene, which began in Nigeria and expanded across Africa and the diaspora. That’s what the award was really highlighting. Beyond feeling recognised, it also motivated me to keep working and to push the magazine’s vision further, despite the limited resources available to us. In a sense, it led to some of the things we did between 2020 and 2023, in particular the Collector’s Series: Artists & Cities, which focused on artists and artist collectives from six cities in Africa and a few from the diaspora. We did our best to make it a selection of artists based in those cities, although you cannot always draw a fine line between those living on the continent and those based in the diaspora, because artists occupy multiple urban spaces, and we were conscious of the continent’s migratory history. However, although it was not directly linked to my curatorial practice, I have always considered my editorial work from a curatorial perspective. If you remember, I was part of the Curatorial Studies program in 2017, and prior to that, I had been interested in curating and exhibition-making, so I often borrow methodologies from the field for my work as an editor. I do not consider them completely separate practices. But indeed, the recognition must have motivated me to keep working, knowing it contributes meaningfully to artistic practices on the continent.

Do you feel like writing really helps articulate the ideas that you then encapsulate in the space? Since you said that the two practices are connected in some way?
The curatorial practice is more intellectual, or, let me say, it’s an ideological practice in which you are constantly thinking, formulating your own ideas, engaging with the ideas of others, and transforming these ideas into presentations that people experience, the publications that accompany them, and the critical dialogues too. Writing is a crucial part of that process. Thinking and writing. You don’t just stop at having the idea; you have to do research, write proposals, and pitch them. Writing is how you eventually connect the idea and the art, and how you translate or communicate that to the world. Writing mediates how the public encounters your thoughts about that project. So, in a sense, you cannot exclude writing from this work.

Regarding writing, I’d like to ask a bit more about the magazine. You said it’s an amazing contribution and an important platform for contemporary African artists. Since it has, in a way, come to an end, I was wondering if you have been able to find other spaces where you can express yourself.
Yes, I have. I think that when the magazine started to slow down, I began to see my work transform and to consider independent publishing in a format other than a magazine. With the magazine, I worked with a small team and a group of contributors, focusing on editing, so I did not always write the articles. I was also handling management and strategy development while constantly looking into how we could raise funds. But as that came to an end, I found myself working more on the creative or conceptual side and felt inclined to work directly with artists. After closing the TSA magazine, I went on to publish the monograph of Nigerian-German artist Ngozi Ajah Schommers, Tracings of Time and Place, and worked with Okhiogbe Omonblanks Omonhinmin, a multifaceted creative, to publish Kids from the River. He had written a memoir that combined poems, essays, and family photographs on the transformative power of loss and grief, as well as the redemptive nature of devoted love and responsibility, which needed thoughtful editorial work and publishing guidance.

And then what happened?
From here, the magazine transformed into TSA Ideas Lab, which I have been using to experiment and think differently. It also aligns with how I work to fill what I consider gaps in the African art ecosystem. Of course, within the global art ecosystem as well. How can I enrich what is there already from another perspective, or from where I stand? And where I stand can be from Nigeria or Africa, or as a woman, or as an international professional. Also, I am not just organising programmes. I am careful about what I am organising, where, and for whom. For example, last year, I co-organised a one-week Listening Academy workshop in Lagos as part of The Listening Biennial’s third edition. Typically, the Listening Academy is nomadic and has been held in places such as Hong Kong, Brazil, the UK, and various cities in Europe. In Lagos, the one-week workshop was called “Go-Slow: Engaging the Imperceptible”, where we looked at what it means to slow down in a city that is fast-paced and encourages hyperactivity, and people are always in a hurry. But the gathering went beyond slowing down in relation to time to looking at hidden experiences, which we examined through the concepts of the ‘imperceptible’ and the ‘inaudible’.

And what about the other projects you’ve worked on?
I also curated a satellite exhibition for the biennial called Wind Chimes, Gongs and Bells. For whom is this call? a multisensory installation of video and sound works and live actions engaging with ideas of interdependence, relationality, and ways of co-existing that continue to escape us in the present. The underlying question was: how can we be attentive to the realities of others? The different projects brought together multidisciplinary artists, emerging sound artists, performance artists, researchers, and curators into one space and into an uncommon way of learning, being together and exchanging. We invited scholars and artists who use alternative pedagogies and are from diverse art fields to facilitate different sessions of the program. Likewise, between the end of 2023 and 2025, I contributed to online exhibitions by Textile Culture Net as a guest curator. TCN has a network that extends across Europe, Asia, Africa and the US, and the curatorial process disrupts the traditional model of authorship. I have to say I enjoy seeing my work manifest in these different ways: from online to offline, from the magazine to publications to exhibition-making and organising, and in transnational conversations. It’s not a closed way of working, and I enjoy that malleability.

THE CURATORIAL PRACTICE ACCORDING TO BUKOLA OYEBODE

Going back to the gaps that you mentioned, I would like to know how that relates to women. And how do you find a way to highlight their work without overpowering their voices, considering African women are often spoken over in that way?
This is an interesting question. The art world is a place where we say there are no hierarchies, but there are hierarchies. Things are often organised top-down, and we are always juxtaposing entities, right? Ironically, artists occupy central positions within this flow (they are at the very centre of the work that we do), but often have the least power or autonomy. Because I am aware of this, I make conscious efforts to work collaboratively. My work is shaped by seeing others as equal to me, or equal in what we can bring to the project, even when the scale of input is not the same. It is important that we complement each other. I think that because I did not enter the art world through an academic background or an institutional setting, I formed a horizontal relationship with artists. I do not come to artists feeling I have authority over their work or how they want to present it to the world. Making direct interaction with the artist front and centre of an exhibition was one of the reasons I enjoyed the Tavola Aperta feature of the 2017 Venice Biennale. And there’s a quote by the late Koyo Kouoh that comes to mind now. “I’m an exhibition-maker who completely depends on the knowledge of the artist.” Although I do not fully see myself in this way, I recognise where it comes from. When I started out in the art world, I learned a lot from artists through studio visits. I showed up at many art shows and had discussions with various artists. These interactions formed the foundation of my passion for this field, alongside my first job at an art gallery. I had many questions that I felt only artists could answer, long before I turned to books, critical discourse and art history. Thus, I am always conscious that, though my role may involve presenting the art and the artist, it does not speak for them. Emphasising their voice or their message is crucial to the success of our work together. But how that is designed shapeshifts depending on the project.

What stance, then, should a curator adopt so as not to overshadow the artist’s voice and vision?Though the curatorial text is essentially the curator’s voice and it is where you shine, you cannot shine if your ideological framework silences the art and artists you are translating to the public. To overpower their voice is to silence the impact your work can have. And because I am a woman, an African woman, I know a lot about silencing and erasure, and I would not like to replicate that in my work. I pay extra attention to how I’m translating or transmitting another woman’s voice. I would not want to directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, erase another woman’s voice because I want my idea to shine. So, for me, that is more important. I am careful about how I present women artists and artists in general. I am also wary of the strange erasure that’s going on in the art world, particularly in art media and publicity. For example, how we are over-pushing the ‘first this and that by a Black or an African artist or curator’ stories that essentialise their identity and their work and erase our collective efforts. When I come across such narratives, I always ask myself, “Is this really the first person from this community to be here or to do this?” Are we erasing someone in history for this momentary applause? I know this form of publicity began as part of the demand to restructure representation within cultural institutions and to redistribute power and positions, but the way it is eventually delivered changes little structurally and comes at the expense of erasing some of the work and success that marginalised people have achieved in the past.

It’s interesting what you said about not wanting to erase precious history, especially relating to African women. So, I wanted to understand a bit more your methodological approach to research and history, since it’s not always easy to trace who came before us and who did something before us.
In Poland, when it became clear that I would curate one of the collateral exhibitions for the 18th International Triennial of Textile, alongside my role as co-curator of the main exhibition and that it would focus on women artists from Africa, I started to think that somebody in the media would use the “First time women artists from Africa are presenting works in Poland” thing. I said to myself, “No, that’s not going to happen” (she laughs, ed.). You are going to show me somewhere in your archive who has been here from Africa, regardless of what capacity. So, imagine my joy when I discovered Madame Zo had shown at the triennial twenty years back.

What makes Madame Zo’s work so important?
Remembering Madame Zo, who recently passed away, was important within this context. I had turned to her work not so much to include it in the show but to highlight her presence in the institution’s history. And this took an interesting turn when the museum confirmed she was an artist in the 2007 edition, and they have the records in their archives. Including the homage to her also enriched Rhizomatic Portals in other ways. It expanded the show’s intergenerational dialogue, and some of the older artists already had contacts with her work. Amina Agueznay, from Morocco, spent time researching Madame Zo’s work in Madagascar during a residency there. Bringing them together in this show was a beautiful coincidence, one that aligns with my agenda of continuity. Madame Zo’s work deserves greater recognition, as the retrospective exhibition by Fondation H in Madagascar shows. The work Madame Zo presented at the 2007 triennial marked her transition from a textile designer or craftswoman to a contemporary textile artist. She had challenged herself to reconsider the notion of fibre and turned to her environment for inspiration, working with found materials while still using traditional weaving techniques. As such, she holds an important position in African art history as one of the foremost women artists in textile practice, working from a contemporary perspective. The homage was placed in a part of the exhibition space where it was in dialogue with the other artists, rather than in a way that would overshadow the other works. The archival presence gave meaning and context to rethinking history and traditional knowledge systems, which were among the ideas present in the other artists’ works.

How did you interact with the institution on that occasion?
At first, the museum and triennial leadership wanted the collateral exhibition to be an African art show, but I felt that was too broad, so I said no until we narrowed the focus to women. This made sense to me because of the connection we could make to the museum’s history and to Łódź in general. The museum used to be a textile factory, and textiles are closely connected to women’s labour. This created a solid background to lay the groundwork for an exhibition emphasising women’s knowledge systems, experiences and other narratives, not as a site of new discovery, but rather within a continuous agenda and framework.

Installation view of Generational Trauma (2022), Pain of the Defeated (2024) and Patriotic Subjectivity (2024) by Gvantsa Jishkariani in Deconstruction/Reconstruction, 18th International Triennial of Textile. Photo: HaWa / Courtesy of the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź

BUKOLA OYEBODE’S APPROACH TO HISTORY

It’s really fascinating how you keep asking yourself, “Who came before us?”. It feels like you really emphasise historical continuity over the rhetoric of a ‘first time’.
I had been asking this question since I was invited as co-curator of the main show. I first checked who has been shown at the triennial in recent times and, for example, discovered that Karo Akpokiere, a Nigerian artist based in Hamburg, was presented in the 2022 edition. I was also keen about the history of artists from Africa in different art institutions across the country. Although African artists are still not regularly represented in Poland, I recalled that TSA magazine had published an article about Bob-Nosa Uwagboe from Nigeria, who was stuck in Gdansk at a residency program during the pandemic. Senegalese artist El Hadji Sy had been shown at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in 2016. It wasn’t for nothing that I wanted to be aware of this history; questions about this came up during press conferences for the triennial. It is important for us to correct the perception that whenever someone from Africa shows up somewhere, it is the first time. This notion is very wrong, especially in the twenty-first century. I guide myself and my work with questions like this often: Who was here before me, what did they do, and how can we or I not participate in erasing that? And that’s where the reference came from. I always try my best not to erase precious history because, though it might be hidden, it is still significant, right? Not being aware of something does not mean it doesn’t exist, and once you become aware, it should become an empowering foundation to build on, whether through direct connection or by proximity.

Staying on the textile topic, it’s clear there’s been a rise in the use of textiles in the contemporary art scene, especially in recent years. How do you hypothesize this way of research is going to develop in the next few years?
It’s a beautiful thing to see textile art practices or art integrating textiles become prominent and enjoy central displays at larger international gatherings, notably biennials that typically favour contemporary media and political discourse. I think this is because textile practices are no longer seen solely as craft and technique but as relevant to querying and reconstructing history and material memory, among other things. It has also advanced significantly from its initial position as a women-based practice to one that represents resistance and increasingly takes on political messages, as seen in some of the works in the 18ITT Deconstruction/Reconstruction exhibition. Sometimes, the political message emphasises softness, or radical softness, and at other times it goes so far as to address topics such as labour exploitation, war, conflict, migration, and repatriation. Additionally, it is now more emphasised how textiles relate to identity, and how artists from non-Western regions are using this to reclaim their heritage, traditional practices, and history. But, by hypothesising, I’m sure you are asking me to predict how things will evolve. Naturally, in the art world, trends always recede, and other forms of artistic expressions will surface and overtake our attention for another block of time. I imagine this will be the case. Ultimately, the current focus will take a back seat. But this itself is not new. Textile art has enjoyed multiple spotlights in the past. We can trace one of these moments to the late 1960s and 1970s, when it became part of the radical expressions of feminist art practices.

You are now based in China, even though you continuously move across continents. How has working from different places influenced you and your curatorial practice?
Working from different locations and spaces enriches my life and work significantly; from a short stay in Venice to living in Tehran for almost three years, then Amsterdam for five years, and now Southern China. Being present in these places exposes me to how art is organised there, and over time, I identify what the place can offer me, and vice versa. For example, it was in Tehran that I produced the special journal The Past in the Present, focused on Nigerian artists, which we took to Dakar in 2018. Being there offered me the quietness I needed to work and access to a good designer and high-quality printing at an affordable cost. You know, almost everyone who received the journal asked us, “Where did you print this, not in Nigeria, right?” I also discovered the exhibition An Introduction to the Art of Black Africa, a result of an exchange between West Africa and Iran in 1977, the same year as FESTAC ‘77. I arrived at this history and the photos from different exchange trips between West African and Iranian artists in the archive of the famous Iranian artist Mr Parviz Tanavoli, because I was present in Tehran and had built a network that opened up conversations about art in the country before and after the Islamic Revolution. Just being present at a particular place offers something. The Collector’s Series was produced in Amsterdam alongside three other publication projects. It was there that I explored the intersection of contemporary art, image history, performance and opera, and I was invited as a guest teacher at re:master Opera at Sandberg Institut. Being part of re:master Opera was how I came to understand and properly appreciate William Kentridge’s work as a fusion of multiple art disciples and techniques, and see him as the master artist that he is. I also want to say that when I was in Amsterdam, my work was not limited to the Netherlands. I worked on the publication for MOMENTUM 12 (Norway’s contemporary art biennial) from there, as well as most of the work for the textile triennial in Poland. It was my home and my base (and where I studied again), but my work was connected to other places in Europe and back home in Nigeria and Africa. In this sense, my career or practice has been kind of portable. It comes with me everywhere I go, and wherever there is internet, I can connect with the rest of the world.

Do you reckon living in China will help you further develop your curatorial work or maybe shed light on new perspectives?
I think that China will be beneficial to me in that way, too. It gives me the opportunity to explore another world, especially as I am disenchanted with Europe and its politics right now. My outlook here is to be present in the wider Asian art scene, because language and knowledge of local art history play significant roles in the different local art hubs. Regarding carrying out my work here, time will reveal what is possible, and I will be happy to share it then.

Dunja Herzog, Instruments For The One Who Dances With Jiggling Brass (2018 – 2025) and Listening Devices (2025) in “Wind Chimes, Gongs and Bells. For whom is this call?”, Satellite Exhibition of The Listening Biennial 2025. Photo courtesy of TSA Ideas Lab

BUKOLA OYEBODE’S PERSPECTIVE ON THE VENICE BIENNALE

Regarding the current Venice Biennale, earlier you mentioned a quote from the late Koyo Kouoh. I was wondering if you consider her a mentor. Also, are you planning to attend this year’s edition of the Biennale?
Indeed, I considered the late Madame Koyo a mentor, although she did not directly mentor me. To me, she was a paramount example of the kind of leadership needed to galvanise and inspire new thinking in the African art ecosystem and to build new institutions. I wrote on Instagram to thank her for her leadership when she passed away. She, like the late Bisi Silva, paved the way for some of us to dream and explore differently in the sphere of curatorial and critical dialogue. But, to be candid, I will not be attending the Venice Biennale this year. I will honour her work and carry on this essential message of dreaming differently elsewhere, maybe here in Asia. I increasingly find it uninspiring to put myself through the dizzying performance we do in the opening week, and with all the current developments around this year’s Biennale, it does not seem necessary to visit in the next six months. The Venice Biennale is becoming or has become an apparatus that is no longer what it was and does not know what it should be. It must first acknowledge its death or collapse before it can live again. The international art exhibition section, meant to stage manifold voices, show us contemporary artistic expressions, and facilitate critique, dialogue, and discourse on current world events, has significantly lost its role and charm due to various factors. Although this development is not recent, it is now clear to all. Likewise, the biased politics around the national pavilions are infuriating. Because of the excessive spectacle, I feel we are losing touch with the poetical and transcendental aspects of art within this context.

What changes do you think would be necessary?
The Biennale should no longer enjoy its privilege and high status if it cannot openly and unconditionally condemn countries involved in war and conflict, allowing them to be in the same space where it invites artists to address the injustice of the past and present. When the Biennale claims to be a neutral ground for truce in the name of art, culture, and artistic freedom, whose voices, oppressions, and emergencies are being amplified or silenced? We need to rethink and further decentralise how we gather and where we gather. Especially for all those who were initially marginalised and had to fight their way into this place. Is this what we fought to be part of, a problematic site of ‘art extravaganza’? We must ask ourselves what this Biennale really stand for today and how that aligns with one’s views as a human and as an art professional? Also, we need to reconsider the pinnacle, or the most significant moment of the artistic and curatorial profession and redistribute the power that is still concentrated in a place and a gathering like this. So far, the resignation of the award jury has been one of the best things to come out of this year’s program, along with the art against genocide protests by ANGA. The internal fault lines of this entity can no longer be managed; we should all demand and negotiate something new. Madame Koyo’s response to COVID-19’s social distancing problems and the global protests in 2020 birthed the Radical Solidarity summit. For me, this is an example of the kind of gathering we need today and should continue to aim for in the foreseeable future. We are fully in a state of crisis.

Giada Libero

Bukola Oyebode

Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien, Take Care (2023) in Rhizomatic Portals: Ways of Knowing, Collateral Exhibition of the 18th International Triennial of Textile. Photo: HaWa / Courtesy of the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź
Simone Goslinga, Panic. Exhilaration (2024), installation and performance in Deconstruction/Reconstruction, 18th International Triennial of Textile. Photo: HaWa / Courtesy of the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź
Amina Agueznay, Talisman of Henna, Variation #2 (2024) and Ngozi Ajah Schommers, Tales in Shrubs, Weeds and Gathering (2025) in Rhizomatic Portals: Ways of Knowing, Collateral Exhibition of the 18th International Triennial of Textile. Photo: HaWa / Courtesy of the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź
Peju Layiwola, Stamping History II (2023) and Nubuke/Women Weavers from Ghana Upper West, Asaasaa (2023) in Rhizomatic Portals: Ways of Knowing, Collateral Exhibition of the 18th International Triennial of Textile. Photo: HaWa / Courtesy of the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź
Installation view of Generational Trauma (2022), Pain of the Defeated (2024) and Patriotic Subjectivity (2024) by Gvantsa Jishkariani in Deconstruction/Reconstruction, 18th International Triennial of Textile. Photo: HaWa / Courtesy of the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź
L-R: The Past in the Present (2018) / Ngozi Ajah Schommers: Tracings of Time and Place (2023) / Collector’s Series: Artists & Cities (2022) / Kids from the River by Okhiogbe Omonblanks Omonhinmin (2025) / Photo credit: Wain Wu
Sound recording and listening workshop during The Listening Academy in Lagos 2025. Photo courtesy of TSA Ideas Lab
Dunja Herzog, Instruments For The One Who Dances With Jiggling Brass (2018 – 2025) and Listening Devices (2025) in “Wind Chimes, Gongs and Bells. For whom is this call?”, Satellite Exhibition of The Listening Biennial 2025. Photo courtesy of TSA Ideas Lab
Bukola Oyebode. Photo credit: Wain Wu
by

Giada Libero

May 28 · 26
Curatorship according to Julia Marchand: an escape from visual and spatial conventions

IT

The Venice-based curator reflects on curating as a practice of montage, active memory, and the construction of new forms of exhibition-making, moving between institutions and independent spaces.

French curator, researcher, and broadcaster, Julia Marchand moved to Venice in 2025. After working at the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles from 2015 to 2023, she left the institution to pursue an independent path already initiated in 2016 with Extramentale ‒ an “underground” curatorial platform through which, for ten years, she supported a generation of emerging artists while investigating marginality and adolescence as a cultural condition. Using spatial montage as a narrative device, her exhibitions construct visual constellations that escape conventional narratives based on historical and identity-based linearity. In this conversation, Marchand also reflects on the role of the curator today, the contemporary reversal of the “carnivalesque” as a political device, the concept of “active memory,” and the need to imagine new forms of exhibition-making.

Julia Marchand. Opening of Adolescence, 2026, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw. Curated by Katarzyna Kołodziej-Podsiadło, Joanna Kordjak and Julia Marchand. Photo Hawa

In a lecture you gave at School for Curatorial Studies Venice, you said that one of the most important exhibitions of your career you worked as Associate Curator was Laura Owens & Vincent van Gogh, in 2021, curated by you, Bice Curiger and Mark Godfrey at the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles. What did you learn from that experience, and how significant was it for your professional development?
There is a common trope in curating with the duo-show that aims to measure the influence of an established or historical artist upon a younger one. Museum curators tend to look down at this model which seems to have empty itself of its narrative: Matisse & someone; Leonor Fini & someone, Paul Cézanne & someone else, and above all, Van Gogh. I do myself despise this model even though I did curate once a duo-show. With regards to your question: Laura Owens exhibition not only managed to dismantle any expectations one could associate with such exhibitions but also avoided its pitfalls. Her take was much broader than the sole influence of Van Gogh in her work since she inscribed her investigation into an economical axis: the economy of the image, its widespread circulation, and what it generates in terms of understanding of art, therefore in the exhibition itself. In short, we know Van Gogh before knowing him. We know the painting from the postcards before encountering the paintings. Laura Owens used other materials, other sources of images in the exhibition: the work of an unknown “craft” English artist from the XIXcentury (Winifred How). By doing so, we conceptually (and visually) re-equilibrate the understanding of Van Gogh’s oeuvre: through the lens of Laura Owens, looking at Winifred How, and relooking again at Van Gogh. It was about rebalancing the weight of our gaze between two opposite poles: on one side, the visually overfamiliar and culturally overexposed Van Gogh; on the other, the entirely unknown patterns of Winifred How. There is a wonderful essay by Mark Godfrey in the exhibition catalogue if you wish to explore further. To reply to your question, it taught me how to work with the legacy of historical artists in a more diffused and conceptual way. How to make a curatorial gesture that makes the coming together of artists more organic and clandestine approach. Duo-show or multilayered narrative are not only about outlining influences (it is even a bit dull to do so) but to expand the sensitive and conceptual scope in which you inscribed them. The Georgian pavilion I did shortly after is a direct response to this.

THE CURATORIAL PRACTICE ACCORDING TO JULIA MARCHAND

In Das Passagen-Werk, Walter Benjamin writes: “The method of this work: literary montage. I have nothing to say, only to show.” He described his method as one that disrupts historical and chronological linearity, recomposing it into visual, thematic, and conceptual constellations that evoke rather than explain. Do you see any resonance between this approach and your own curatorial practice? If so, could you give us some examples in exhibitions you have recently curated?
Totally. I would even say this is the accurate definition of how I curate! No wonder, then, that I did an exhibition with German filmmaker and poet Alexander Kluge, former (real) collaborator of Theodor Adorno and (desired) collaborator of Walter Benjamin as Kluge’s friendships with thinkers and writers expand the community of the living ones. I think Benjamin’s writings advocate an active remembrance without forcing it: a way of not forgetting, of sensing and remembering the presence of our past (and present) as something that emerges naturally, almost like a romantic encounter. Montage is not about juxtaposing elements; it is about how you juxtapose them to create the meaning of your own and slipping through the conventional narrative (and chronology). Montage is not only visual: it is a political act (used by artists and filmmaker such as Jean Luc Godard and Kluge). I am a woman and I am much younger than those folks so my take should be different, right? But I have been always skeptical about the oblivion in which we are plunged or about the pigeonholing of artists (I am not only talking about identity politics). By response to the oblivion: I curate exhibitions as a form of montage. The most striking ones are clearly my two last exhibitions I did on Iliazd (1894-1975), the Georgian editor and poet who lived in Tbilisi and Paris. In both of those exhibitions (Georgian Pavillion, 60th International Art Exhibition of Venice Biennale; Toutité at Fondazione Antonio Dalle Nogare, Bolzano) Iliazd materials are set in relations to the works of emerging artists. But none of those shows fall under the category of the duo show above mentioned. They are spatial montages acting upon a form that situates itself outside of curatorial hegemonic gestures. It is about trusting the materials and its reception by artists, then the visitors; it is about breaking the main narratives and to substitute it with a “feeling” which allows various entries point within the show. With regards the latter it was particularly striking with the Georgian Pavillion since the point of departure was a book on naked eye astronomy (Maximiliana ou l’Excercice Illégal de l’Astronomie, published in 1964). This sensual astronomy becomes the gesture of the exhibition as much as the idea of constellation as a prospective quest. The constellation put forth by Walter Benjamin was at stake too, but it was a silent pact I had with myself.

Laura Owens and Vincent van Gogh, 2021. Exhibition view, Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles. Courtesy: © Laura Owens, Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, Sadie Coles HQ, London and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne. Photo Annik Wetter

In your curatorial research, the “carnivalesque” appears as a recurring theme. In a conversation with Morgan Labar (the Everythingism podcast, January 20, 2025), you describe it as a space of suspension and the subversion of social and political hierarchies. It was also central to the symposium you organized at the Centre Pompidou in 2020. It is even a key reference in the Venice Biennale In Minor Keys, curated by Koyo Kouoh. How do you think the “carnivalesque” can operate today in contemporary art not only as an imaginary or aesthetic, but as a curatorial device?
The symposium was made right before Covid. How ironic was that. I don’t think carnivalesque is the progressive and subversive figure anymore. I am going to be a bit naughty here but I would be more aligned with the ideas of Claire Tancons she delivered during my symposium about the carnivalesque as belonging to the conservatism scope. Look at Donald Trump: he is the new figure of the bouffon. Let’s look at Javier M from Argentina. Those forces have migrated over centuries and now are part of the institutions. Those the world in itself has been “carnivalesqued”. With regards to the Venice Biennale, I think the most carnivalesque “curatorial” gesture is the Trump-supported American artist Alma Allen signing a big contract with the French major gallery Perrotin.

Do you believe in large-scale thematic or collective exhibitions? Can they still make sense in the contemporary art system, where there seem to be more biennials and triennials than artists? In this context, how do you imagine the role of the curator evolving in the coming years?
I don’t believe in them anymore but they still operate as a big carrot for many curators, including myself. The role of the curators has changed drastically the last few years. There are two sides of the coin: one could see we witness the “desertion” of our sector while one could testify of a “expansion” it is: how many of us have turned towards gardening, farming, laws, social work? I have been myself tired of making exhibitions that only circulate within our milieu. Today, the course of the world is deepening social inequalities, and this is massively reflected in the structure of the art world itself: on one side, the curators of major foundations who also circulate through the biennials, and on the other, those who continue to drift away from the artistic milieu. It is naive to think that the curatorial gesture is still made for art itself: it serves boards, patrons, and countless other parameters. And yet, it is within private foundations that we can witness some of the most radical artistic gestures. In Venice, for example, I am thinking of the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation.

Which themes do you think are urgent today, but still difficult to present within a museum or institutional framework?
Let me respond to this question by taking actions! But I can say one thing: I have a big problem with participatory art and workshops.

Adolescence, 2026. Exhibition visual identity, © Kaja Kusztra. Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw. Curated by Katarzyna Kołodziej-Podsiadło, Joanna Kordjak and Julia Marchand. Photo Aneta Grzeszykowska, “File 04”, 2025. The work was created with the support of the Fondazione D’ARC, Rome

THE PROJECTS BY JULIA MARCHAND

Three years ago, you left the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, where you had worked as a curator from 2015 to 2023, giving up the stability offered by a major institution. You now live in Venice and work as an independent curator ‒ a choice many colleagues would call “risky”. What motivated you to make such a radical change?
My internal flame was off. You can’t be a curator without this little fire inside!

I have always found your ability to “inhabit the threshold” fascinating: you have worked in major institutions while simultaneously maintaining a more “underground” curatorial practice, out of the spotlight, particularly through your platform Extramentale (2016-2026) and your podcast Everythingism, through which you have supported and given visibility to many young and emerging artists. Does this stem from a personal necessity, a political choice, or both?
A vision, perhaps? A way to build it by embracing more the fragilities of the established one and the emerging voices. I am not surrounding to the language of fixed forms, I am truly doubtful about everything and I believe there is an artistic rigor at every levels. This is a matter of artistic ambition, not a politics or individual needs.

Speaking of Extramentale: this year you decided to conclude this curatorial project ‒ encompassing exhibitions, happenings, talks, and research ‒ which for ten years has explored contemporary art “through the prism of adolescence”. What prompted you to start this research? Perhaps, do you inhabit thresholds in the same way as adolescence?
Extramentale was born in 2016, so clearly it is reflecting what happened in the wake of the 2008 crisis and the 2010 sensibility: the birth and disillusion brought by the digital totality, the necessity to inhabit the periphery, the phenomenon of an adolescence as a cultural condition, the necessity of building a community that felt the same way. Also, no one really addressed it “back in the days” apart from the exhibition at CAPC of Bordeaux co-curated by Stephanie Moisdon. Extramentale was born in 2016, when I turned 30, it is ending in 2026, right before my 40^th birthday. It is time (culturally and individually) to enter into a form of adulthood.

In 2026 Extramentale becomes a book (I Am The F****** Subject: Art and Adolescence, Lenz Press, March 2026) and enters an institution with an exhibition on adolescence at the National Gallery Zacheta in Warsaw (April 2026), which you co-curated with Joanna Kordjak and Katarzyna Kołodziej Podsiadło. What differences, limitations, and opportunities are you encountering in institutionalising exhibitions about adolescence? Is there a risk of stigmatisation that Extramentale has always avoided?
It is clearly a risk, but I feel this exhibition is very different from what I tried to not achieve with the book. Also, my co-curators and I have very different understanding of the subject and very different starting points: in that sense it is a very fruitful contrast. They involved teenagers in the curatorial endeavor whereas I stood “against” this idea for the reason you outlined above. But the outcome became very interesting like various modes of engaging visitors in an experience related to adolescence. As far as I am concerned, I considered adolescence as a condition, an experience, not an age group to involve in the making of an art piece (it can, of course, include them but in a more diffused, unexpected way).

As a perfectionist ‒ someone who literally rewrites the same text fifty times, as you told me once ‒ how do you relate to “error”? Has your relationship with it changed over the course of your career, or is it still evolving?
Ahahhaha it gives me back pain and I am still a perfectionist even at 40!! I am very hard to please, so I won’t give up on that with my work even it is involved suffering and not allowing errors. Perhaps I should be a bit more perfectionist with the men I chose, and less with the texts I write ;)

Vittoria Morpurgo

https://www.julia-marchand.com

Julia Marchand. Opening of Adolescence, 2026, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw. Curated by Katarzyna Kołodziej-Podsiadło, Joanna Kordjak and Julia Marchand. Photo Hawa
Laura Owens and Vincent van Gogh, 2021. Exhibition view, Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles. Courtesy: © Laura Owens, Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, Sadie Coles HQ, London and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne. Photo Annik Wetter
Laura Owens and Vincent van Gogh, 2021. Exhibition view, Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles. Courtesy: © Laura Owens, Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, Sadie Coles HQ, London and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne. Photo Annik Wetter
James Ensor & Alexander Kluge: Dark Centurie, 2018, Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, curated by Julia Marchand. Visual identity © Fabien Chaminade
Adolescence, 2026. Exhibition visual identity, © Kaja Kusztra. Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw. Curated by Katarzyna Kołodziej-Podsiadło, Joanna Kordjak and Julia Marchand. Photo Aneta Grzeszykowska, “File 04”, 2025. The work was created with the support of the Fondazione D’ARC, Rome
Adolescence, 2026. Exhibition view, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw. Curated by Katarzyna Kołodziej-Podsiadło, Joanna Kordjak and Julia Marchand. Photo Hawa
Adolescence, 2026. Exhibition view, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw. Curated by Katarzyna Kołodziej-Podsiadło, Joanna Kordjak and Julia Marchand. Photo Hawa
Adolescence, 2026. Installation view by Chiki, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw. Curated by Katarzyna Kołodziej-Podsiadło, Joanna Kordjak and Julia Marchand. Photo Hawa
I Am The F****** Subject: Art and Adolescence. Edited by Julia Marchand, in collaboration with Vittoria Morpurgo. Lenz Press and Extramentale, 2026. Designed by Lorenzo Mason Studio. English, softcover, 11×18,5, 160 pages. Image courtesy and copyright: Lenz Press and Lorenzo Mason Studio
I Am The F****** Subject: Art and Adolescence. Edited by Julia Marchand, in collaboration with Vittoria Morpurgo. Lenz Press and Extramentale, 2026. Designed by Lorenzo Mason Studio. English, softcover, 11×18,5, 160 pages. Internal spreads. Courtesy and copyright: Lenz Press and Lorenzo Mason Studio
I Am The F****** Subject: Art and Adolescence. Edited by Julia Marchand, in collaboration with Vittoria Morpurgo. Lenz Press and Extramentale, 2026. Designed by Lorenzo Mason Studio. English, softcover, 11×18,5, 160 pages. Internal spreads. Courtesy and copyright: Lenz Press and Lorenzo Mason Studio
by

Vittoria Morpurgo

May 22 · 26
From the Venice Biennale to the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. Interview with curator Bana Kattan

IT

On the occasion of the opening of the Biennale Arte 2026, Bana Kattan spoke to us about “Washwasha”, the project she curated for the United Arab Emirates Pavilion. Starting from the sonic geographies that shape the exhibition, the conversation explores the reflections that informed its development, situated within the framework of “In Minor Keys” ‒ the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia curated by Koyo Kouoh ‒ as a space for listening and critical reflection. The discussion then extends to the foundations of her curatorial practice, which focuses on horizontal forms of collaboration and on connecting practices, subjectivities, and transnational cultural contexts.

Originally from Bethlehem, Palestine, and born in Abu Dhabi, Bana Kattan is a curator and researcher active between the United Arab Emirates and the United States. Appointed Curator and Associate Head of Exhibitions at the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project, she has curated numerous exhibitions at international institutions, including the NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Framing her work as an active field of research aimed at constructing perspectives that diverge from dominant narratives, she investigates the connections between multiple forms of belonging and the historical, social, and political dimensions that have shaped their identities, creating a continuous network of relations between local contexts and global dynamics. Addressed to what is referred to as the “global majority,” she develops exhibition projects that bring different generations of artists and their practices into dialogue, while maintaining a constant focus on creating spaces for collective exchange.

Bana Kattan. Photo by Dahlia Dandashi. Image Courtesy of National Pavilion UAE ‒ La Biennale di Venezia, 2026

For the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia ‒ In Minor Keys, you curated the UAE Pavilion with the exhibition Washwasha. The title ‒ the Arabic word for “whispering” ‒ evokes subtle sounds and soft voices, resonating closely with the Biennale’s theme, which invites visitors to re-attune to emotional, intimate, and communal frequencies of life. This direction seems deeply aligned with your curatorial research, which engages with non-hegemonic forms of narration and plural, often marginalised or displaced subjectivities. In what ways did your approach engage with the Biennale’s overarching theme, and what path did you follow to translate it into the Pavilion’s project?
So I actually started working on this show before the theme was announced, and I can’t tell you how lucky I felt that the Biennale’s theme was so well connected to the show. There is a quote that Koyo said in the first press release about tuning into the minor keys and looking for the fragments and I wrote that quote down; I didn’t want to miss it. I wrote it down on a post-it, put it next to my computer, and I kept looking at it as I was thinking about the show. A really important connection, to me, has been thinking about gathering spaces and especially sonic gathering spaces, that resulted in Naiman, the bathhouse by Jawad Al Malhi representing a place of shared memories and collected oral histories. I reflected a lot on the importance of the places where we gather and where people talk, and this can also be seen in the work of Lamya Gargash who did the Majlis series.

Sound plays a central role in Washwasha. Prioritising the sonic over the visual carries an invitation to listening and proximity, creating intangible connections and communal exchanges. Is this direction a curatorial choice that interprets In Minor Keys, or is it the expression of a more intrinsic identity of the United Arab Emirates?
I think it’s both: I really wanted to show a part of the UAE arts scene, so not all of the artists are Emirati but they all are connected to and an important part of the UAE arts scene. Also within the UAE, as within every country, it is not possible to be one thing. It’s much more interesting than just being one thing. And I think this is well shown through the multiplicity of voices that are coming out of this exhibition. So yes, I think the sonic element actually works on many levels and at the same time it is something that really connects the UAE into one shared place.

THE NATIONAL PAVILION UAE CURATED BY BANA KATTAN

In your work, research plays a fundamental role in reconstructing and highlighting relational constellations, weaving together diasporic and transnational identities. From this perspective, how do you engage with the rigidity of a national pavilion in a framework that historically implies an idea of identity and culture tied to rigid territorial boundaries?
Your questions are so nice, thank you! You clearly care and understood the show. I think sound is a nice way to think about it because you can’t contain sound into a border, it just goes. This is not a sound show, but it starts with sound: the whole point is in this sonic element and in its connection to intangible culture. Then, once you start thinking in that way, movement and migration become a central part of the exhibition.

You have described the exhibition at the National Pavilion UAE as an “artist-led exhibition,” and your work reflects a clear intention to build relationships that move away from vertical structures. In pursuing a model of horizontal and collaborative curating, how do you orient your work to create an ecosystem of collective growth and ongoing research?
To me, just thinking about being artist-centric and artist-led is the right way of thinking about the curatorial experience in general. I have found that the best exhibitions that I have done, and that my colleagues have done, have placed this at the center. Another important aspect is to create an exhibition theme that is open enough. Washwasha’s theme allowed each of the six artists to take different routes: some of them spoke about oral histories, others spoke about language, and still others about anxiety ‒ considering the washwasha in someone’s mind or the washwasha of technology. In my opinion, what allows that to happen is to give support and autonomy to the artist.

Building on your professional experience at the NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery, you have actively engaged with the local context while fostering dialogue between different generations of artists. In your view, does the rapid institutionalisation currently taking place in the United Arab Emirates pose any risks for the local art scene?
I think that the UAE arts scene is very ready, it’s been ready for some time and there are already wonderful art institutions. I think in Abu Dhabi alone I can list five amazing institutions that have been doing great work. There’s even a museum, the Al Ain Museum, which is part of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, that opened in 1971, before the formation of the UAE. So, we have a long history of museums and I think we definitely have room for more!

I was also thinking about the increasing western interest on the region…
Yeah, exactly. There is an exhibition that I co-curated while I was at the NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery with Maya Allison ‒ director and the chief curator of the NYUAD Art Gallery ‒ that was called But We Cannot See Them and it involved a group of UAE artists that were active from 1988–2008. The title was based on a poem by Nujoom Al Ghanem, one of the artists in the show, and we titled it in that way because we were a little bit bored of people in the West saying that we don’t have contemporary art or contemporary artists. I think this is a conversation that we can do through our work, beyond just talking about it, but actually doing it.

Mays Albaik, Kūni Kai Akūna Kama Aqūl! (Be, so that I may be as I say!), 2026. Mouth-blown glass, LED light. Courtesy of the National Pavilion UAE – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by Ismail Noor

THE CURATORIAL PRACTICE ACCORDING TO BANA KATTAN

Staying on the theme of the relationship between institutions and cultural identity, and in connection with your appointment as Curator and Associate Head of Exhibitions at the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project, how are you positioning your practice within a museum with a Western framework in order to give resonance to regional art?
One of the main geographical mandates of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is West Asia and that will be the primary focus of the museum. I’m really excited to be part of a museum with such a wonderful collection ‒ they have been collecting since 2005 ‒ and I am so happy to contribute to bringing that West Asia focus within the Guggenheim constellation.

In your career, you have curated exhibitions in very different contexts: at the NYU Art Gallery in Abu Dhabi, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and now at the Venice Biennale. Has this diversity influenced your curatorial choices both practically and conceptually, as well as in terms of different forms of public engagement?
I think that one of the most important things for me as a curator is to make sure that no matter where I’m doing an exhibition, the content should still be interesting in its original context. For example, in the context of the UAE National Pavilion, we selected an exhibition title and concept that begin from an Arabic word. Yet as an onomatopoeic term, Washwasha contains in its pronunciation the sound made when whispering, and can thus be understood by non-Arabic speakers. In this case, and in all of my exhibitions, it is important to me that the project engage first and foremost the audience coming from the context in which it originates, while at the same time remaining capable of speaking to everyone.

Curating ‒ as your work demonstrates ‒ is not merely an aesthetic practice, but also carries a profound ethical, social, and political dimension. In a time of extreme tension and fragmentation, how should the role and responsibility of the curator be redefined?
Thank you for this question, this is a really nice interview. We all see the world we are living in, and also we can see that the Venice Biennale this year is so different from any other year. In the spirit of Washwasha I just ask people to slow down and listen to communities, listen to the voices that have not been heard but should be heard. This is part of the curatorial premise.

Alessia Leoni
https://www.labiennale.org/en/art/2026/united-arab-emirates
https://nationalpavilionuae.org/art/2026/art-exhibition-2026/

Bana Kattan. Photo by Dahlia Dandashi. Image Courtesy of National Pavilion UAE ‒ La Biennale di Venezia, 2026
Alaa Edris, Wiswas, 2026. Iroko wood, 3D-printed animatronic eyes, sound. Courtesy of the National Pavilion UAE – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by Ismail Noor
Alaa Edris, Wiswas, 2026. Iroko wood, 3D-printed animatronic eyes, sound. Courtesy of the National Pavilion UAE – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by Ismail Noor
Farah Al Qasimi, The Curse, 2026. Video installation, sound, vinyl, inkjet prints, 18 mins. Courtesy of the National Pavilion UAE – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by Ismail Noor
Farah Al Qasimi, The Curse, 2026. Video installation, sound, vinyl, inkjet prints, 18 mins. Courtesy of the National Pavilion UAE – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by Ismail Noor
Farah Al Qasimi, The Curse, 2026. Video installation, sound, vinyl, inkjet prints, 18 mins. Courtesy of the National Pavilion UAE – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by Ismail Noor
Jawad Al Malhi, Naiman, 2008/2026. Mixed media installation, sound. Courtesy of the National Pavilion UAE – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by Ismail Noor
Jawad Al Malhi, Naiman, 2008/2026. Mixed media installation, sound. Courtesy of the National Pavilion UAE – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by Ismail Noor
Lamya Gargash, Majlis (series), 2009. C-prints. Courtesy of the National Pavilion UAE – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by Ismail Noor
Mays Albaik, Kūni Kai Akūna Kama Aqūl! (Be, so that I may be as I say!), 2026. Mouth-blown glass, LED light. Courtesy of the National Pavilion UAE – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by Ismail Noor
Taus Makhacheva, And What Did You Say?, 2026. Performance, installation, sound. Courtesy of the National Pavilion UAE – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by Ismail Noor
Taus Makhacheva, Dear R., R., K., S., M., A., C., S., K.,I., G., L., A., A., L., P., G., E., J., D.,M., C., B., O., F., F., R., D., M., E.,L., I., F., L., A., M., T., K., K., L., P.,F., V., A., L., L., 2018/2026. 3Dprinted speakers, sound. Courtesy of the National Pavilion UAE – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by Ismail Noor
by

Alessia Leoni

May 21 · 26
Exhibitions, misunderstandings and curatorship: an interview with Luca Lo Pinto

IT

First a curator at the Kunsthalle Wien, then artistic director of MACRO – The Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome – until early 2025, Luca Lo Pinto has always combined publishing with curating, adopting a free and open approach that embraces misinterpretation.

Luca Lo Pinto’s (Rome, 1981) curatorial practice stands out for its unconventional nature. His approach consists of distancing himself as much as possible from the self-referentiality of the art world, creating encounters and hybrid cultural spaces. This identity emerged during his tenure as curator at the Kunsthalle Wien ‒ where he developed exhibitions characterized by a non-hierarchical and highly process-oriented approach ‒ and was further solidified during his artistic direction of MACRO ‒ The Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, where he promoted the idea of the museum as a magazine and an organism in constant transformation.
Lo Pinto is also part of the publishing world: he is co-founder of the magazine and publishing house NERO, and his catalogs often reflect the non-conformist and conceptual aspect of his practice. One example is Editorial, an exhibition in words, which does not contain photographs of the exhibition but rather the words of writers invited to visit it and write about it.
In his conception of curatorship, misunderstanding is not an error to be corrected but a condition with which to work. Similarly, the idea of curatorial authority does not coincide with control, but with a form of presence that never completely overlaps with the artists and that, precisely for this reason, must continually redefine its own position. Thus, the exhibition, too, is never a stable entity.

Luca Lo Pinto. Photo by Bianca Hirata

THE INTERVIEW WITH LUCA LO PINTO

You often talk about the importance of individual freedom. As a curator, where do you draw the line between your own freedom and that of the artists you work with?
I have always viewed curating exhibitions as an act of authorship, and when a curatorial project has a strong authorial dimension, it is often interpreted as a gesture of vanity, as an attempt to overshadow the artist or the works. From my perspective, this is not the case at all: the starting point is always the artist and their work. I try to understand them deeply, almost to get inside their head, and then step back to truly imagine an exhibition together.
I’m interested in being a sort of accomplice in the creative process, so that my presence isn’t merely an accessory. Otherwise, my work would risk being reduced to that of a facilitator ‒ almost useless. There are, of course, contexts in which the curator assumes a more productive role: I’m thinking about spaces like the Secession in Vienna, where the model is that of a solo exhibition in which the artist retains almost total control. This, too, is part of curatorial work: helping an artist transform a vision into reality. However, this dimension alone is not enough for me. The opportunity to engage in direct dialogue with artists, to share the same historical moment, is an aspect that has always fascinated me in working with contemporary art, compared, for example, to ancient art. This dialogue is something unique, which I strive to make the most of. Even in solo exhibitions, my goal is for the project we create together to be different from what the artist would have created without me. Every artist is different, every collaboration has its own dynamics, but for me, the relationship between curator and artist is above all about a working methodology, a way of constantly asking questions. I have never agreed to carry out a project simply “for the sake of doing it”: I have always tried to push every work as far as possible.

You say you’ve learned from artists not to be afraid of being misunderstood. Have any of your exhibitions ever been misunderstood?
Many. Spending time with artists from different generations has taught me that misunderstanding can be a productive part of dialogue. I’m thinking, for example, about the time I spent with artists like Emilio Prini or Luigi Ontani, who showed me a less rigid way of relating to art, and taught me to poke fun at the art world’s systems and not to be so attached to the constructed image of the intellectual. Or Mike Kelley, who in his writings fiercely criticized Rosalind Krauss: a gesture that struck me deeply, because at the time it didn’t seem possible to do so.
Some artists want their message to be understood exactly as they formulate it, while others want misunderstanding to be part of the dialogue. In this sense, even opacity can be productive: not necessarily something negative, but a space for interpretation. When an exhibition doesn’t propose an explicit theme or a linear narrative, it inevitably invites different interpretations. It’s a bit like experimental cinema: by eliminating certain narrative elements, the viewer is called upon to engage more deeply with the experience. It’s a more demanding process, but also a more open one. We often prefer familiar paths, like always choosing the same dessert because we already know what flavor to expect. But when an unexpected element is introduced, a possibility for discovery opens up.

Can you give us an example?
The communication work done at MACRO, which we might call “pop,” has been interpreted by some as a sign of a kind of negative frivolity. This was also the case with the catalog for MACRO’s latest exhibition, Post Scriptum. A museum forgotten by memory, the use of language drawn from fashion publishing could be misinterpreted as a form of adherence to commercial imagery. In reality, it is not a matter of appropriation, but of working with languages and their structures. It is always the combination of elements that produces meaning.

You told me that you don’t read art magazines and that this was one of the reasons you founded NERO in 2004. While art magazines were once one of the main sources of information about the art world, where do people now learn about and discuss contemporary art?
I have no idea. This isn’t a stance against art magazines: I used to flip through them just as I would fashion or music magazines. However, I often find that the way they talk about art lacks a personal touch. There must be a vision, an almost obsessive dimension, a style of writing where you sense a real urgency, even if imperfect, but authentic. For this reason, I’m more interested in editing than in writing art criticism in the traditional sense. Editing is a form of indirect writing, which allows you to construct a discourse through the relationship between different contents.
Today, the ways we access information are much more diverse. The idea of getting information exclusively through art magazines seems almost limiting: it’s more about reading everything. Some editorial projects I liked, such as Index or Purple, focused heavily on the format, or prioritized the interview as a space for reflection. When we founded NERO, there was no particular magazine that served as inspiration. Today I’m more interested in a platform like Contemporary Art Daily, which functions as a visual archive-in-progress documenting exhibitions with images that are not always easily accessible: a very simple but effective idea.

NERO 34

CURATORSHIP ACCORDING TO LUCA LO PINTO

I believe that exhibitions are not necessarily the main locus for art. Where do you seek out or find art?
The search often unfolds through a chain of connections: a series of encounters, suggestions, and conversations. When I travel, I try to see as much as possible; I listen to people I trust, and I let my curiosity guide me. Many discoveries arise from dialogue: a conversation with an artist can lead you to a book, a place, an unexpected figure. I am surrounded by very different people, and I am interested in building an open network of references, avoiding overly self-referential circuits. Sometimes a suggestion can lead you not to a museum, but to a church or a marginal place, and it is precisely there that an intuition for a project can emerge. I am often drawn to details that escape a more casual glance, to figures left on the margins, to irregular stories. Over time, one realizes that some of history’s “losers” probably deserved a different standing, and this opens up new ways of interpreting events.

Speaking of history’s defeated, the program of the Museum for Preventive Imagination ‒ whose name paid homage to the Office for Preventive Imagination project created in Rome in 1973 by artists Carlo Maurizio Benveduti, Tullio Catalano, and Franco Falasca ‒ features the project Aritmici, which has given space to “irregular figures and atypical stories from a more or less recent past.” This drive toward the rediscovery of subjectivities that are marginal or overlooked by history often recurs in your curatorial practice. I’ve noticed a very high number of women in these projects. How can curatorship help preserve the memory of certain artists, and female artists in particular?
This is not a matter of policy or quotas. I am interested in avoiding a rhetorical approach to issues of identity. When these topics are treated superficially or merely as a matter of political posturing, the result risks being hypocritical. This does not mean denying the urgency of these issues, but rather asking how to address them consistently. When bringing figures into an institution who have also worked outside the art system, the responsibility is even greater. “Taking care” means avoiding rhetoric and working concretely on the conditions through which these stories can be understood.
Consistency between what is said and what is done is fundamental. It is not enough to select a name or follow a trend: every project must fit within a broader vision. Otherwise, the risk is simply that of chasing whatever appears relevant at a given moment. Regarding issues of representation ‒ I am thinking in particular of women and artists of color ‒ if we look at the data, the disparity is evident: one need only examine the statistics published by collectives such as the Guerrilla Girls. However, today we must also pay attention to how these issues are addressed. In many cases ‒ especially in the American context, which often drives these processes ‒ there is an attempt to rapidly make up for centuries of historical delay. The reality, however, is more complex. The same applies to the debate over monuments: I believe neither in their simple preservation nor in their destruction. There is a third way, which consists of questioning them, problematizing them, and creating new ways of interpreting them.
Reducing everything to a polarizing logic – black or white – is dangerous, because it is precisely this kind of simplification that fuels far-right populist politics. Complexity must be preserved, not simplified.

You became director of MACRO in 2020, at the start of the pandemic. How did these circumstances affect your work and your understanding of the audience?
Actually, less than one might think. The challenges were already there: it was as if the ground had been pulled out from under my feet, even though I was already somewhat accustomed to working without certainties. Of course, beyond the health emergency, the main regret was not being able to open the first exhibition right away.
At the same time, that situation opened up new possibilities. I’ve never had a rigid approach to curating: I don’t think reality should have to adapt to a pre-established project. During COVID, for example, while we were working on the first group exhibition, it was impossible to predict whether the works would arrive on time. So, I decided to embrace this uncertainty: if a work arrived later, we would integrate it subsequently. It wasn’t about constructing an “evolving exhibition” as a theoretical choice, but about letting reality itself determine the project’s rhythm. It’s an attitude that implies a certain openness to risk, but also the possibility of discovering unexpected paths.
Paradoxically, some ideas emerged precisely because of that situation: without the pandemic, I wouldn’t have organized the Lawrence Weiner exhibition in the sky or published a catalog like Editorial, an exhibition in words – devoid of images.

Your installation choices are anything but conventional. You just mentioned the Lawrence Weiner exhibition where the works were dragged through the sky by an airplane; I’m also thinking of the Hanuman Books 1986–1993 exhibition, where the publishing house’s archive was laid out on the floor, inviting visitors to walk over it. What criteria do you use to determine the placement of an artwork, and how does the mode of display influence the very definition and perception of the work?
I believe that the arrangement of works in space can profoundly alter their meaning, or at the very least suggest new interpretations. It is one of the most interesting aspects of curating exhibitions. When I speak of “exhibitional writing,” I’m using a metaphor; the ideal would be to construct an exhibition that stands on its own, without the need for any explanatory apparatus. Like when you walk down the street and encounter images, objects, people: you don’t have a caption, but you still construct an experience and a meaning. Some exhibitions work exactly like this, asking the viewer to engage. I’m thinking of Corrado Levi’s exhibition, Il Cangiante, at the PAC in Milan, where works of American Pop Art were arranged in a serial fashion, all at the same distance, suggesting a reflection on repetition and the logic of the product. Or Ed Ruscha’s intervention at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, where he altered the height and exhibition context of historical works, radically transforming their perception.
Sometimes a single detail – the height of a painting, its position on the floor, the possibility of walking over an archive – is enough to generate a significant change. These choices arise from a blend of imagination and research, but also from spontaneous intuitions: there is no linear or programmable process.

Hanuman Books 1986 – 1993. Exhibition view, MACRO, Roma 2022. Courtesy Collezione Mughini Photo Piercarlo Quecchia – DSL Studio

MUSEUMS, INSTITUTIONS, AND THE FUTURE

There are a lot of discussions today about the attention deficit crisis and the use of artificial intelligence, even in exhibition settings. What future do you see for wall text?
Artificial intelligence is a recent but unavoidable tool. You can’t stop reality. Thinking of excluding it from educational or cultural processes is unrealistic. The point, once again, is how to use it: limiting oneself to generating automatic summaries is a trivial, tired solution, devoid of real interest.
Every choice depends on the context. If I’m curating an exhibition in a highly specialized setting, I can afford a certain level of complexity. But in a public museum, accessible to everyone, the challenge is different: how to create a language that is meaningful to a scholar, a casual visitor, and a teenager accustomed to watching TikToks.
The goal is to find a form that is neither simplified nor artificial, but something else. And, precisely because it is “something else,” this form can lead to misunderstandings. It’s a situation I know well: even with NERO, it was often unclear whether it was an art magazine, a fashion magazine, or something else. For us, this ambiguity was a virtue, because it signaled the success of a hybrid project. Of course, this stance comes at a cost: being difficult to classify also makes securing financial support more complex. But that’s part of the game. If we want to talk about freedom – a word perhaps overused today – we must accept that it comes at a price. “Te la devi accollare”, as they say in Rome.

Your leadership style has been one of taking nothing for granted. In your interview with Il Giornale dell’Arte, you said that “Everyone sensed that this was a museum truly designed to welcome them, one that spoke their own language – a significant achievement, given that museums typically speak the language of history rather than that of artists, a language with different rules, different tones, and a different grammar.” You also opened the doors of your institution to everyone, putting up a sign outside that read “free admission.” Should museums be free? Or rather, can they be?
I don’t know if they should be free. I don’t think there are any rules. We need to think about the context we’re in. In a country like Italy, with shocking cultural decline and rampant precariousness, being able to share the work of avant-garde artists with a wider audience ‒ since the avant-garde usually has a smaller audience ‒ is important. Reaching out to the public doesn’t necessarily mean it will be reciprocated, but I think the choice to reach out anyway has a dimension that is also political. But I don’t think that, by its very nature, a museum should always be free. I think that right now it’s more important than ever to be even more generous than usual.

For your latest exhibition at the Kunsthalle Wien, Time Is Thirsty, you created an immersive exhibition space: you asked Sissel Tolaas to recreate the scent of Vienna in 1992, and loud music played continuously throughout the exhibition – which you said you made them promise never to turn down. How important is the sensory dimension in your curatorial approach?
The immersive and sensory aspect, in and of itself, doesn’t particularly interest me; on the contrary, I often perceive it as a form of entertainment, especially when, in large institutions, complexity is reduced to something almost circus-like. I’m more interested in a sensual dimension, in the broadest sense of the term: a total, almost synaesthetic engagement that activates multiple senses simultaneously and isn’t limited to a single mode of perception.
In this sense, the use of elements such as smell, sound, or light can become significant, especially when one wishes to transport those entering a neutral exhibition space – the classic white cube – into another dimension. It is not, however, a matter of creating spectacular effects, but rather of constructing a complex perceptual condition.

In the past, you wanted to be an architect, and – for example, in the case of MACRO – your practice was greatly influenced by the museum’s architectural structure: its alien form partly inspired your idea of an “octopus museum.” If, in a parallel reality where you actually are an architect, you had to design your own museum, what would the ideal structure be?
I’d like a modular museum that can be modified. One that can open, close, move, rise, and change its flooring – parquet one day, marble the next. A bit like a child would imagine it.

You don’t like themed exhibitions, because in that context the artist risks becoming merely “a means” to support a curatorial idea. You have, in fact, organized many solo exhibitions; but in your group exhibitions, how have you avoided reducing artists to this role?
I don’t organize themed exhibitions. The latest exhibition at MACRO, for example, sought rather to reflect and condense the threads that had run through the entire program. The first, on the other hand, had an almost manifesto-like character: it involved artists working with very different languages, including practices that go beyond the traditional artistic object.
In Vienna, I conceived an exhibition in which there was no actual object, but time itself became the primary medium; in projects with house museums, on the other hand, it is the space that constitutes the subject. During a residency at the Frac in France, I worked on the collection while avoiding a traditional exhibition: I reflected on the idea of the artwork as an image, creating a postcard for each work, which was then paired with a book selected from the library. This resulted in a collection of 788 “meta-artworks,” a structure deliberately left implicit, partly left to chance.
Still on the theme of the image, for an exhibition in Vienna as part of Curated By – which took Beatriz Colomina’s The Century of the Bed as its reference – I arranged the works in the space, photographed it with the idea of exhibiting only a 1:1-scale photo, thereby transforming the exhibition into an image. In all these cases, even when the curatorial project is underpinned by a strong concept, the artists are never reduced to mere tools: they are involved in the process and participate actively, recognizing the solidity and coherence of the proposals. It may happen that someone refuses, but I have always sought to make it clear that behind every project there is substantial research and a genuine commitment to its realization.

Time Is Thirsty, installation view, Kunsthalle Wien 2019. Photo: Jorit Aust: Willem de Rooij, Body Warmer, Size S; Jacket, Size S; Jacket, Size L; Tracksuit, Size XL; Tracksuit, Size XL; 3-Part Track Suit (Jacket, T-Shirt, Pants), 2015, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York

ITALY VS ABROAD: A COMPARISON

You have directed two institutions that are very different in terms of history, structure, and context: the Kunsthalle Wien and MACRO – The Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome. How did their different institutional statuses ‒ the Kunsthalle without a permanent collection and MACRO as a municipal museum with a collection ‒ concretely influence your curatorial and programmatic decisions? And to what extent, on the other hand, did the systemic differences between the Austrian and Italian contexts (cultural policies, funding, relationship with the public, decision-making autonomy) influence your way of working?
From the perspective of autonomy, I had great freedom in both cases. At the Kunsthalle Wien, although I was not the director, I worked with a director, Nicolaus Schafhausen, who gave me absolute freedom.
The systemic differences, however, are enormous and represent almost two opposite extremes. Austria is a small but very wealthy country, and Vienna, as its capital, offers an extraordinary cultural concentration considering its physical scale. There are institutions of the highest caliber – just think of the musical tradition, from the Opera to the Musikverein, or the major museums – but also a solid educational system, with very strong academies. Above all, there is a genuine cultural welfare system: work in the arts is recognised, supported, and structured. This, however, also produces a side effect. In such a stable system, there is a risk of a certain overproduction: exhibitions, books, and projects that exist because the system allows them, but not always out of real necessity.
In Italy, the situation is the opposite. One grows up in a state of structural precariousness, without guarantees. On the one hand, this is problematic; on the other, it generates a different kind of tension, a more radical drive. Personally, I have always believed – perhaps still in a somewhat romantic way – that the artist should not be an “employee of the system,” but a figure capable of thinking outside the box, of embodying a form of freedom and risk.

And what about how the institutions operate?
Here, too, the differences are clear. In Italy, the system is much more fragile, both economically and politically. In Rome, for example, budgets are extremely limited, and political influence can directly affect cultural decisions: a change in administration can also mean a change in direction. This does not happen as easily in Austria.

How then does the relationship with the public change?
Paradoxically, in a context like Vienna’s, where the cultural offerings are so extensive and integrated into daily life, one sometimes senses a decline in curiosity. When something is always available, it risks becoming taken for granted. This is also reflected in the way institutions engage with the public. In Vienna, there is a strong focus on educational programs: they are structured, in-depth, and truly integrated into the school system. The educational departments function very well and play a fundamental role.
At the same time, however, I wondered about the overall effectiveness of this effort: how much of it is actually absorbed? It’s not enough to produce content; you also need to understand how it is received.
Working within an institution allows for precisely this: not only carrying out projects, but also observing over time how they function, how they evolve, and how they can be recalibrated. It is an opportunity that is not available in more temporary contexts, such as a single exhibition.

In your recent interview with Cristiano Seganfreddo for Flash Art, you spoke about your faith in art. What does it mean, given the global situation we find ourselves in, to have faith in art?
The idea that I might encounter works or people capable of surprising me, and of leading me to discover things I didn’t know, or making me see things I already knew in a new way. And that’s what still excites me. It happens rarely, but when it does, it has such power that it still makes working with art rewarding for me.

Yasmine El Hafidi

Luca Lo Pinto

Luca Lo Pinto. Photo by Bianca Hirata
Luca Lo Pinto (ed.), Editorial: an Exhibition in Words, Humboldt Books, Milan 2021 (cover)
Hanuman Books 1986 – 1993. Exhibition view, MACRO, Roma 2022. Courtesy Collezione Mughini. Photo Piercarlo Quecchia – DSL Studio
IN REAL LIFE, exhibition view. Christine König Galerie, Vienna 2014
Lawrence Weiner, Spaccato – Split, TRACCE / TRACES. Photo Claudia de Nicolò, Bianca Trevisani
Veduta della mostra Museo per l’Immaginazione Preventiva – EDITORIALE, MACRO, Roma 2020. Photo Roberto Apa
NERO 34
Time Is Thirsty, installation view, Kunsthalle Wien 2019. Photo: Jorit Aust: Willem de Rooij, Body Warmer, Size S; Jacket, Size S; Jacket, Size L; Tracksuit, Size XL; Tracksuit, Size XL; 3-Part Track Suit (Jacket, T-Shirt, Pants), 2015, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York

The text has been translated in English using AI
by

Yasmine El Hafidi

April 23 · 26
Art creates many worlds. An interview with curator Michela Alessandrini

IT

Michela Alessandrini, curator at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris, spoke to us about her professional background and the key aspects of her practice, whilst also offering some reflections on the distinctive features of contemporary curating.

The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris is a leading institution in the contemporary art scene, and Michela Alessandrini (Tivoli, 1987), curator responsible for international projects, took us through the stages of her career that have equipped her to meet the challenges of today’s art world within an institution characterised by an experimental approach.

Michela Alessandrini in the exhibition Andrea Branzi by Toyo Ito at Triennale Milano, 2026. Photo (still from video) @ Edera studio

THE INTERVIEW WITH MICHELA ALESSANDRINI

One striking feature of your past experiences is their diversity, which was already evident in your formation: you studied in different countries, including Italy and France, and later worked in Hungary, Belgium, Morocco, Switzerland, Spain, the Netherlands and Qatar. How do you think this international dimension may have influenced your experience and your curatorial approach?
Although I grew up in a semi-rural setting, away from the contemporary art scene, I belong to a generation of curators who were strongly encouraged to travel and have international experiences. Those were the days of Obrist’s Don’t Stop and night-bus journeys to see exhibitions; fortunately, we later realised we needed to slow down, at least a little. During those years of frequent travel, with no precise strategy in mind, I was lucky enough to work at institutions such as Mathaf (Arab Museum of Modern Art) in Doha, where I served as a research consultant on its extensive collection of Arab art; the ERG (École de Recherche Graphique) in Brussels; residencies in Geneva, Rennes and Rabat; experimental hubs such as FUTURA in Prague or Labor Gallery in Budapest; and museums like the MACBA in Barcelona and the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, where I was able to develop my research, always in between academia and cultural institutions dedicated to contemporary art in all its forms. Today I can apply these experiences – which vary greatly in terms of the type of institution and cultural contexts in which they operated – to my curatorial practice at the Fondation Cartier, where I am specifically involved in international projects.

The wide geographical scope of your experience is matched by a very solid academic foundation – first your degree, then curatorial training and a PhD – as well as publishing, writing, residencies and exhibitions. How do these very different aspects come together in your professional life? Do they blend well, or is there a risk that they sometimes remain separate?
One of the central aspects of curating is precisely the creation of connections, and for this reason, I feel that learning to navigate between layered experiences, different formats and various disciplinary fields is fundamental. Art is many things and exists in many places; it creates many worlds. Overall, I would say that my formative years were an indispensable learning experience that has taught me to adapt to very different realities, from small and experimental to large and international ones, striving to evolve not only as a curator but also, hopefully, as a human being. For example, at the École du Magasin in Grenoble, I learnt from my fellow curators (there was no “top-down” teaching) that, in order to work in a group, one must accept compromise and trust the other’s vision, letting go of parts of oneself. Research, then, has been an extremely significant aspect that continues to accompany me to this day: I could never abandon it, and I am fortunate to be able to use both exhibitions and writing to create spaces dedicated to it. Curating is an umbrella discipline that allows me to switch on and off parts of myself and their related manifestations, depending on the creative (or destructive) phase I am going through.

View from Siamo Foresta, Triennale Milano, 2023. Credits Andrea Rossetti / Héctor Chico

THE PROJECTS BY MICHELA ALESSANDRINI

One of your early projects, carried out for the magazine Droste Effect, was The Portrait Room, a collection of “portraits” of curators and personalities from the art world. To what extent did comparing your work with that of other curators help you define your own approach?
If I had to identify a common thread linking all my projects right from the start, I would say that I have always been interested in starting with the subject, with people’s stories and lives. The idea of a human-scale history of art strikes me, an history that begins with individual experiences to speak of collective dynamics. Ginzburg’s cheese and worms… My writing practice is closely tied to the anecdotal, the self-fictional, the interstitial: even today, when I conduct interviews, I try to bring out those little things shared by everyone, as they seem to me to be the true guarantee of a common sense of humanity. It was particularly significant to see how the interview format was used by Tiziana Casapietra in Radicate and by Chiara Bertola in Curare l’arte (Mondadori Electa, 2008). Chiara interviewed other curators to understand their practice and their approach to art, a project still ongoing and one that has brought us together to the point of developing a sequel to the book, which will be titled Un cammino lungo: le cure dell’arte (in progress). I believe that engaging with others – not just curators but also artists, philosophers, architects, designers, etc. – is necessary to clarify the role of our practice in the world. When I set out on the path to becoming a curator, there were few courses focused on this practice, and asking questions was the only way to learn. Today, however, everyone wants to be a curator (as Lea Vergine says in a video interview, that I screenshotted and set as my desktop background. I let myself be guided by the smoke from her cigarette, thinking of Romana Loda or Cérès Franco and all those historic curators I’ve been lucky enough to meet, directly or indirectly, and who have taught me more than any school or journey I’ve done).

Another key theme in your work as an art historian and curator is the archive – and particularly the curatorial archive – understood not merely as documentation produced by the curator in the course of their work, but as a genuine working method and a living space. What use, then, can the archive have for a curator during their professional practice or that of their colleagues?
I don’t have a definitive answer, and I believe that the Curatorial Archives in Curatorial Practices project (which I have been curating since 2015) serves precisely to offer some answers, albeit provisional. One of the features that appeals to me most, in the archives I have visited and those I imagine, is that they allow us to “see something else”, taking into account aspects held within those folds of reality by what we call memory: a concept that needs to be completely re-examined, not least thanks to a more generous and contemporary definition of the archive, which, it seems to me, we are beginning to arrive at. Engaging with the archive allows one to gain a deeper understanding of an artwork, rethinking its role and re-examining its univocity and hegemonic role in relation to the archival record, for example through a curated display. The same can be done with institutions, by investigating why certain exhibitions were organised, why certain works were chosen or others acquired. For Harald Szeemann, for example, the archive was a tool for divination and self-representation; for Charles Esche, it is a collective device that speaks of a shared behaviour within the museum and the society that creates and sustains it. I like to sit somewhere between the two (to name just two, even though the CACP interviews are now more than thirty). I believe that the personal dimension is highly significant, because it is only by starting from the subjective experience and giving it its due weight that we can reach the collective, or universal, dimension, if you like. What is human unites us.

Do you have your own archive?
My relationship with the archive is mediated by my memory, which operates, so to speak, through convective movements, grasping things and then letting them go. The archive is necessary because it allows me to revisit what I would otherwise have lost or forgotten (I forget a great deal, and I believe that forgetting is, in some way, cathartic if approached with innocence and grace). In short, I would say that I trust in the organic nature of my memory’s flow, aided by the archive, even if, for now, it is scattered, fragmented and disordered, just like me. Perhaps the most recurring theme in the curators’ responses regarding their archives is that these archives resemble them, embodying their vision of time, space and of the existence between these two dimensions.

The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2 place du Palais-Royal, Paris. Photo © Luc Boegly

MICHELA ALESSANDINI’S WORK WITH THE FONDATION CARTIER IN PARIS

After such a diverse range of experiences, how did you settle into and relate to an institution with such a rich tradition behind it as the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris?
When I was asked to curate exhibitions for the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, I was ready and eager to get started, to put my research aside for a moment, since I had just defended my PhD thesis in the summer of 2020. Between one lockdown and the next, I began curating the exhibitions developed by the foundation as part of its partnership with Triennale Milano, where we have just opened the tenth exhibition, Andrea Branzi by Toyo Ito, which I co-curated with Nina Bassoli. My background was well suited to the interdisciplinary and international nature that characterises the work of the Fondation Cartier – which, over the years, has made very deliberate choices to represent art in its many forms, as well as moments, geographical and cultural spheres that were “in between” and marginal at the time – and that now enjoys considerable attention.

Your curatorial work for the Fondation Cartier, as you said, was also part of a fruitful partnership with the Triennale Milano that has been ongoing since 2019. In particular, the exhibition Mondo Reale (23rd International Exhibition Triennale Milano, 2022) was based on the idea of rediscovering the wonders of our planet; subsequently, with the exhibition Siamo Foresta (2023), you focused on a vision of the forest understood as an ecological state of mind, in a dialogue between works by indigenous and non-indigenous artists; ranging from an exhibition of the collection as seen through the eyes of the Argentine artist Guillermo Kuitca (Les Citoyens, 2020), a retrospective on the work of Alessandro Mendini (2024), and the most recent one, which you mentioned, on Andrea Branzi. To these we can also add the exhibition Féminin Plurielles (2022), which you organised as an independent curator – invited by the Musée Cérès Franco – centred on plurality as a fundamental condition for the interpretation of the “feminine”, trying to deconstruct the univocal and canonical definition that is claimed to exist. From your point of view, what might be an effective way for a curator to engage with such complex contemporary themes, without resorting to repetitive approaches that fail to do justice to the reflection and poetics of the artists involved?
In Siamo Foresta, the central theme was the relationship between nature and culture, and the forest as a space for the creation of new ecological practices and philosophies, whilst Mondo Reale sought to reflect on what we look at and how we look at it. Formafantasma’s exhibition design was pivotal, and the collaboration was truly fruitful. The distinctly contemporary nature of these themes is undoubtedly due to the Fondation Cartier’s experimental approach and sensitivity to the contemporary world. As a curator, I believe it is necessary to constantly question one’s own practice, seeking to avoid the hyper-focus that could lead to dangerous forms of exploitation and exhaustion of a theme without resulting in a re-evaluation of the behavior – institutional, curatorial and experiential – associated with it. The curator bears responsibility not only for what is shown, but for why it is. The slow and careful work that these key issues of contemporary culture – memory, the dialogue between the real and the virtual, gender issues and ecology – deserve seems to me to be a methodology to be mindful of, an ethic to which we must return.

In October 2025, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain moved from its historic premises on Boulevard Raspail to its new space in Place du Palais-Royal, opposite the Louvre. The new venue, in an 1855 building, have been redesigned by Jean Nouvel with a focus on flexibility, adaptability and transparency. As a curator, how do you intend to approach this new space, and the opportunities and challenges it will present compared to the previous one?
Once located in Montparnasse, a neighbourhood of great historical significance for the arts, the Fondation Cartier now occupies a space – and, by extension, a cultural ecosystem – with a strong institutional identity, given its proximity to the Louvre, the Centre Pompidou, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs or the Bourse de Commerce. The principle of dynamic architecture is based on the ideas of porosity, flexibility and the continuous reinvention of space, inviting artists to experiment, in line with the Fondation Cartier’s approach. For a curator, this poses a fascinating challenge: we are accustomed to perceiving, thinking and projecting “in relation” to the space (of the museum), to temporality (the ephemeral nature of the exhibition), to the public, to the artist, to the work, and to the period in which the exhibition takes place. I feel it is urgent to ask ourselves what an exhibition is and what purpose it serves today. For me, the space of the new Fondation Cartier offers this chance by highlighting the proximity of the exhibition medium to that of a performance or a theatrical piece. Its location between Rue de Rivoli and Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré exposes us to the constant flow of people walking past the windows, who, in turn, see the exhibition shift within the ordinary flow of their daily lives. Everything passes, but this encounter is a breach in the bubble we call reality and, at the same time, a reminder of the possibility we have to constantly reshape that very bubble. We must always remember that the exhibition is just one point on the complex line of an artwork’s life; therefore, it is and must be undefined and non-definitive, otherwise it loses its power and, indeed, its raison d’être. The ephemeral nature of the exhibition compels me to accept my own finitude and the sequence of states I must pass through.

Given the vast range of experiences you’ve had – both as a scholar and as a curator – is there any particular theme or curatorial approach you haven’t yet had the chance to explore and would like to try?
Every curator has countless exhibitions in mind that they haven’t had the chance to realise, but I believe it is essential for me to continue focusing on counterexamples. A few weeks ago, I was in Miami, preparing an exhibition on the artist Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, which will open in autumn 2026 at the Institute of Contemporary Art. On that occasion, I was able to see one of the sacred trees on which Ana Mendieta imprinted one of her Siluetas (1981), specifically in Little Havana, where rituals linked to Santeria are still performed (leaving behind offerings that are very much present, both visually and olfactorily). I think there are two very interesting things about that place: the presence-absence of Ana Mendieta (which reminds me of the coats designed by Branzi, like uninhabited sculptures); and its nature as a counterpoint, an anti-monument to the official monument commemorating the Bay of Pigs Invasion. It seems to me that, in these times of withdrawal, clinging to something sacred yet mundane, to the invisible, is absolutely necessary. In the future, I would like to work starting from reflections of this kind, in whatever form it will be possible, from exhibitions to critical discourse to dialogue with other artists and colleagues; and especially writing, because writing is like weaving, and I never want to stop (words too are invisible rituals, always broken). Perhaps we, as curators, should focus less on the projects themselves and more on how they might flourish in others, without exploiting, and thus weakening, their essence by manipulating it. From mediation to therapy, we often try to bend art to a function it can only fulfil spontaneously: at best, I can accompany it so that it reaches the heart of those willing to receive it. I already know that it saves you, because it’s happened to me and keeps happening, cyclically. Reproducing this miracle so that it can reach many people is a strategy that institutions could aim for, embracing the crisis that inevitably runs through them and compels them to regenerate, if possible, with commitment and grace.

Elia Castello

Michela Alessandrini

View from Siamo Foresta, Triennale Milano, 2023. Credits Andrea Rossetti / Héctor Chico
The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2 place du Palais-Royal, Paris. Photo © Luc Boegly
View from Andrea Branzi By Toyo Ito. Continuous Present, Triennale Milano, 2026. Photo Andrea Rossetti
View from Mondo Reale, Triennale Milano, 2022. Credits Andrea Rossetti
View from Féminin Plurielles, Musée Cérès Franco, 2022. Photo © Alain Machelidon
Michela Alessandrini in the exhibition Andrea Branzi by Toyo Ito at Triennale Milano, 2026. Photo (still from video) @ Edera studio
by

Elia Castello

April 9 · 26
Community and curatorship. The interview with Mohamed Almusibli, director of Kunsthalle Basel

IT

Mohamed Almusibli has been appointed director of Kunsthalle Basel at the age of 33. He previously worked as a consultant for Amsterdam’s Hartwig Art Foundation and is also the co-founder and curator of the independent artist-run space Cherish in Geneva. Throughout his career, he has consistently emphasized the importance of independent cultural spaces and community-building.

In March 2024 Mohamed Almusibli was appointed director of Kunsthalle Basel, one of the most influential institutions in Switzerland, becoming one of the youngest directors in the museum’s history. Known for his community-based approach and his background as an artist-as-curator, he is considered one of the most promising figures in contemporary curatorial practice. In this interview, we discussed how he brings these principles into the framework of a major institution, how he envisions Kunsthalle Basel as a welcoming space for both artists and audiences, and how he navigates the dynamics of the Basel art scene and its connections with international art fairs.

Mohamed Almusibli. Photo Mathilde Agius

THE INTERVIEW WITH MOHAMED ALMUSIBLI

You are known for your artist-based approach and for working outside institutional frameworks ‒ as an artist yourself and as a co-founder of Cherish in Geneva. What elements of these practices have you been able to bring into a large institution like Kunsthalle Basel, and what had to be reconsidered? What challenges did you encounter in this transition?
At Cherish, we literally lived in the space where we made exhibitions. That changes everything about how you think about art and hospitality. The works weren’t chosen to fit an institution; the institution shaped itself around the works and the people. That principle, putting the artist genuinely at the centre, is something I’ve carried directly into Kunsthalle Basel.
What had to shift was my relationship with pace and structure. Eight exhibitions per year is a real challenge; at Cherish, we had the luxury of time and improvisation. Here, decisions have consequences for my team, our audience, our artists, and our supporters. I’ve had to learn to be rigorous without losing spontaneity. It’s a transition I’m still navigating, and I’ve come to see that ongoing process not as a weakness, but as part of what keeps the work honest.

What role do networking and community-building play in your curatorial practice? At Cherish, you and your colleagues aimed to create a space that was comfortable not only for artistic production but also for living inside this space. Do these values still guide your work within an institutional context today?
Absolutely, though they take a different shape. My goal has always been to establish the institution as a host, as a place where people and artworks feel comfortable. That was true at Cherish, and it’s just as true here.
What I’ve come to understand is that community-building at an institution requires more intentionality. At Cherish, it happened organically because we were living there. At Kunsthalle Basel, I had to be more proactive, building real relationships with the local scene, art students, the audience, and the artists. My first exhibition, Regionale 25, which I curated from the start, was very exciting because it gave me the chance to meet local artists and visit their studios. It was the ideal way to immerse myself in Basel’s art scene.

Many major museums and institutions operate under constant financial and institutional pressure and are often expected to produce blockbuster exhibitions. How do you balance your alternative, artist-centered approach with the budgetary and structural demands of a large institution in practice?
What is special about Kunsthalle Basel is that it puts artists at its centre, and I believe that when you do that well, audiences feel it.
We don’t have a collection. We can’t rely on a Monet to fill the room on a slow Tuesday. Every exhibition has to earn its own attention. That’s actually a freedom; it means I’m never programming around what we own, only around what I believe matters right now. My response to financial pressure is not to dilute the programme, but to be precise about it. I’ve had to become comfortable with fundraising; what matters is that the programme shapes the budget, not the other way around.

Kunsthalle Basel, 2025. Photo Nicolas Gysin – Kunsthalle Basel

MOHAMED ALMUSIBLI’S CURATORIAL APPROACH

Basel, much like Venice, is strongly shaped by one major annual event ‒ Art Basel ‒despite a vibrant cultural life throughout the year. How does this rhythm affect your work as a curator and the programming of Kunsthalle Basel? Do you align exhibitions with the Art Basel calendar, or do you deliberately position the institution independently from it?
Both, honestly, but not in equal measure. Art Basel brings an extraordinary concentration of people who care deeply about art to this city, and it would be foolish to pretend that doesn’t create an opportunity. I must say that I first underestimated how vibrant Basel is! I expected something quiet and cosy, but since arriving, there has always been something happening. Art Basel is part of that energy, not separate from it.
That said, Kunsthalle Basel’s programme follows its own logic year-round. We are not a satellite event. If something in our programme aligns with Art Basel week, it’s because it’s the right moment for that work, not because we timed it to the fair calendar. The rest of the year, we have a loyal, critical, engaged audience in Basel, and they deserve a programme that treats them as the main event, not the warm-up act. For me, every exhibition is an Art Basel show :)

Together with Cherish, you have also participated as a curator in art fairs such as artgenève, Art Monte-Carlo, and Paris Internationale. How do you relate to the commercial side of the art world today? Do you see it as a necessary skill, a separate field of experience, or primarily as a platform for direct dialogue with collectors?
I don’t think you can be a credible curator today without understanding the market, not because you should serve it, but because you need to know how it operates in order to navigate around it when necessary. My experiences at artgenève or Paris Internationale taught me that an art fair is not a monolithic commercial space. There are real conversations happening, real risks being taken by some galleries, and real discoveries to be made.
What I bring into those contexts is the same curatorial stance I have everywhere else. The artists I’ve worked with, like Ser Serpas, whose work I’ve loved watching evolve since we first did a show together in 2019 at Truth and Consequences in Geneva. I choose Ser because I believe in what she’s doing, not because of her market position. And I think collectors respect that.

Kunsthalle Basel, 2025. Photo Nicolas Gysin – Kunsthalle Basel

MOHAMED ALMUSIBLI’S PERSPECTIVE ON THE KUNSTHALLE BASEL

Historically, Kunsthalle Basel has served as a platform for emerging artists. How do you continue this tradition today? Through which activities and projects?
Kunsthalle Basel has an over 150-year tradition of identifying and showcasing artists before they achieve widespread recognition. Working with artists at pivotal moments in their careers is a privilege and a responsibility. I cannot promise that every artist shown will become a star, but if you’re willing to accept the risk, you’re in the right place. That’s the commitment.
In practice, it means staying close to emerging practices; through studio visits, through the schools, through my network around the globe. Marie Matusz is a great example: a young French sculptor working with transparency and materiality in really compelling ways, who had a show at Cherish and whose back wall project at Kunsthalle Basel I was very much looking forward to. That kind of continuity, following an artist across different contexts and scales, is how I try to nurture practices rather than just present them.

Recently the figure of the artist-as-curator have become more widespread. Your experience represents perfectly this phenomenon. Would you say that your work as curator, as well as a director, is an extension of your artistic views?
Yes, fundamentally. I consider myself a good observer, and I think that quality stems from my experiences as an artist and from spending a lot of time around other artists. You learn to look slowly, to notice what’s not being said, to understand what a work needs rather than what you want from it. That attention is what I bring into every exhibition.
But I’m also honest about the limits of the idea. Being an artist doesn’t automatically make you a better curator – it makes you a different kind of curator. What it does give you is a genuine understanding of vulnerability: what it means to put work into the world, what’s at stake in an exhibition for the person who made it. That changes how I work with artists, how I listen to them, and ultimately what ends up in the room.

Looking ahead, what do you see as your main priorities, and perhaps risks, over the next five years, not only as a director, but specifically as a curator?
My priority is straightforward: to make Kunsthalle Basel genuinely necessary. Not institutionally necessary, it already is that, but culturally necessary. A place that people feel they need to visit because something is happening there that isn’t happening anywhere else. Kunsthalle Basel has always placed the artist at its centre and stood as a beacon in the art world. I want to deepen that, not just maintain it.
The risk I think about most is normalisation, the slow drift towards safety that happens in every institution over time. You start making decisions based on what has worked before, on what supporters are comfortable with, and on avoiding controversy. The warm reception I received upon arrival was surprising and encouraging, but comfort can also be a trap. I’d rather make a programme that occasionally unsettles people than one that reliably pleases them.

Luiza Gareeva

Mohamed Almusibli

Kunsthalle Basel

Mohamed Almusibli. Photo Mathilde Agius
Kunsthalle Basel, 2025. Photo Nicolas Gysin – Kunsthalle Basel
Kunsthalle Basel, 2025. Photo Nicolas Gysin – Kunsthalle Basel
Kunsthalle Basel, 2016 Photo Yohan Zerdoun – Kunsthalle Basel
BibliothekArchiv Lesesaal, 2023, Photo Anja Furrer – Kunsthalle Basel
Kunsthalle Basel, 2021, Photo Moritz Schermbach – Kunsthalle Basel
by

Luiza Gareeva

April 9 · 26
Architecture as an interdisciplinary action: the interview with Bianca Felicori

IT

Starting from the success of the project “Forgotten Architecture” and reaching back to the roots of her research, this conversation with Bianca Felicori explores the key points of her work, situated at the intersection of architecture, art, and life. Embracing the radical legacy, her practice becomes a medium of inquiry and intervention for the present time, connecting architecture with social and cultural issues.

Bianca Felicori (Bologna, 1994) is an architect and researcher active between Milan, Paris, and Brussels, where she obtained her PhD by investigating the convergence between artistic and architectural research in the 1960s and 1970s across Europe and America. Throughout her career, she has curated independent projects and collaborates with brands and institutions as a moderator and author.

In 2019 you founded Forgotten Architecture, a project aimed at rehabilitating and sharing 20th-century architectural works that were left out of the institutional writing of architectural history and its great masters. Born as a Facebook page, it quickly created a phenomenon of collective research, open to anyone who wished to contribute projects, images, or photographs; fundamental is its premise as an open-source space for a possible bottom-up form of valorization and preservation. Do you believe there is a need for greater horizontal integration within architectural culture to allow the discipline to generate reflections beyond its more restricted circle?
Absolutely yes, it is a fundamental aspect. Years after its launch, what I can say I’ve understood with Forgotten Architecture is that, in order to avoid widespread ignorance about architectural culture ‒ or for it to be reduced to an elite audience ‒ it is necessary to update the tools through which the history of architecture is discussed and disseminated. This doesn’t mean diminishing it, but rather providing the right information to as wide an audience as possible, so that recurring trends ‒ such as Brutalism or Minimalism ‒ can also be understood by people who don’t necessarily need to know the history of these neologisms, which in fact don’t really exist, but are overused in magazine headlines, from Corriere to AD. In my opinion, all useful means of talking about the history of architecture should be increasingly explored with proper scientific accuracy, translating the information at our disposal into something accessible to everyone with equal awareness. However, this path is not entirely simple, just as it is not psychologically easy for those who carry forward this struggle: for instance, I have often been labeled an influencer and have had to face sometimes very misogynistic attacks. Having a voice in this field requires a great deal of energy and remarkable resilience.

Forgotten Architecture later took the form of an editorial project that you curated yourself, materializing in the publication of the book of the same name in 2022 (NERO), followed by an expanded second edition in 2024. Within the framework of what can be defined as a participatory archive, accessible in its online dimension, what curatorial criteria guided the selection of the architectures included in the book?
For me it has always been very interesting to translate a digital archive into the most traditional form and medium possible: the book. This question about structure is therefore extremely important because it represents one of the most enjoyable parts of producing Forgotten Architecture: it wasn’t easy to figure out how to structure it, but now that several years have passed since the first edition, I can say I still like how I set it up. Basically, the book was divided into chapters, each dedicated to one of the most recurring categories in the Facebook group; this led me to reflect on the years that were most prominent, namely the post-World War II period, particularly between the 1950s and the 1970s. Then, I assigned each chapter to authors whom I knew were interested in a specific theme; in many cases I didn’t know them beforehand and met them precisely for this book. They selected the projects that serve as appendices to each chapter, although I would say I selected most of them myself. To convey the idea of a group and open source ‒ as you rightly defined it ‒ each project includes a set of information, and the captions list the names of the people who selected and posted them in the Facebook group. For me, this was ‒ and still is ‒ the best way to convey the horizontality of the project. I am now thinking of producing a second book; the approach will certainly be different, but I will try to maintain this horizontal orientation as much as possible.

THE PROJECT FORGOTTEN ARCHITECTURE

The expression Forgotten Architecture reveals the intention to address forgotten architectural works. However, this rehabilitation does not follow institutional criteria of cataloguing and historical memory, but aims instead to build a participatory archive, in which works are welcomed as opportunities for new forms of action. Forgotten Architecture shifts the perspective away from traditional archival logic and creates a living ground for dialogue between past and present: in what way can this model of archive interact with contemporary practice?
To answer this, I would start from the name itself, which is deliberately ambiguous. It can be interpreted in different ways by the people in the group, and that has also been the most controversial aspect. Everything is based on a use of language almost in the sense of Umberto Eco ‒ open source as in Opera aperta. That said, as a historian of architecture working with archives, I believe that today more than ever we live in a time when it is necessary to rethink both the role of architecture and the role of the architect in society. We cannot think of writing architectural history in a traditional or self-referential way; rather, we must investigate where the need to preserve memory, study history, and safeguard materials in physical archives comes from. There should be a continuous cross-checking of the sources and tools at our disposal.
For example, with Forgotten Architecture we made popular ‒ in the strict sense of the word ‒archival material that had been forgotten or long unused, and for me this was almost an affective operation. Over time, many of the architects mentioned have passed away, but I have been able to maintain relationships with their families; for them too, being included in a publication that has done very well and attracted a very young audience was a breath of fresh air I hadn’t expected. This is already a way of rethinking the archive ‒ and also history and memory ‒ in a physical sense, linked to the bodily and emotional dimension of human beings. If it were up to me, I would do this with everyone’s archives, and if resources allowed, this could be my full-time work.

Giuseppe Perugini with Uga De Plaisant and Raynaldo Perugini, Casa Albero, Fregene, 1968-1975. Image credits: Archivio Studio Perugini

In the thematic sections of the volume, emphasis is given to works that intertwine with different moments of human life: architecture is not only linked to the design of living spaces but becomes a vehicle for irony, play, ideals, and provocations. This experience, defined historiographically as Radical architecture, could perhaps represent a path for a renewed contemporary practical attitude. Which elements of the radical experience should contemporary architecture recover in order to respond to present expectations and re-establish an active dialogue with new generations?
I’m glad you asked this question because I think it is the reason that pushed me to continue my academic research with a PhD, and it also encapsulates the reasons behind Forgotten Architecture. I’ll quote Beatriz Colomina in Global Tools (NERO, 2018): in the introduction she asks whether this desire to return to the 1960s and 1970s is a nostalgic revival or whether there is a more structured reason.
Personally, I believe that trying to understand how architecture can be reinterpreted not only through built form but also as a critical political form is central to the future of our discipline, especially in a historical moment marked by multiple crises. Particularly in the context of an economic crisis that prevents us from designing and building as we once did, we feel an even stronger need to go beyond the boundaries of constructing buildings and architecture strictly tied to a Vitruvian function. What I have always tried to do is to revisit key aspects of the radical experience, especially the idea of revolution that passes through the discipline itself. This has translated into a desire to align my life with architecture in order to offer a new perspective. This revolutionary drive has led me to study architectural history from a female perspective, bordering on feminist, and to adopt new media capable of creating a horizontal discourse that is not always easy to understand.

ARCHITECTURE, MUSIC, AND ART ACCORDING TO BIANCA FELICORI

On the occasion of (T)rap&Architecture ‒ the digital talk held in 2021 at the Triennale Milano ‒ you connected architectural discourse with the social realities of urban peripheries, involving members of the Milanese rap scene and blending different cultural languages: in your opinion, does this capacity for hybridization represent a necessary direction for contemporary architectural discourse?
This is where everything comes together: in my practice I have always tried to use different media. Although I consider myself a curator, I have almost never used the exhibition as a medium in the traditional sense: in my view it is not sustainable, it is often self-referential, and lacks the ability to connect with audiences. Some exhibition formats are appropriate, but I have always tried to avoid them in favor of creating engagement and collective connections.
For me, (T)rap&Architecture was a very radical experiment, if we want to define it that way. It stems from a personal background and from the desire to understand how certain political narratives are completely ignored by architecture and urban planning, often for class-related reasons. This is a topic I have explored extensively, most recently in 2023 when I had the opportunity to bring Ghali to the Venice Biennale. This was a unique opportunity to move from the scale of the city to that of conflict in the Mediterranean and, when possible, I intend to return to this theme to explain how today it is necessary to write architectural history in relation to the present. Preserving memory does not mean ignoring contemporary debate ‒ quite the opposite. What (T)rap&Architecture, like Forgotten Architecture, should become is the idea that such initiatives can expand into other disciplines and other forms of dialogue.

In what ways?
For example, I noticed that this project brought particular critical attention to the periphery, opening up a crucial reflection on architectural complexes designed in the second half of the 20th century ‒ not as mere scenic backdrops, but as entities with their own political and social identity. Recently, however, this attention is being lost, and these places are becoming mere settings for music videos, films, and so on, stripped of their intrinsic political role.
Initiatives like (T)rap&Architecture, therefore, become absolutely necessary to maintain focus. My mother, for example, is from the Melara district of Trieste, and I often watch the Friuli-Venezia Giulia regional news: I know very well what happens daily in such a place, yet at the same time I see it aestheticized in all kinds of media. This dynamic, in my view, represents a major risk of the contemporary image overload, and that is why I believe this form of hybridization is more necessary than ever.

LIBERATO, “TU T’E SCURDAT’ ‘E ME,” 2017. Image credits: screenshot from the music video “TU T’E SCURDAT’ ‘E ME,” 2017; photographs of the architectural complex by Fabrizio Vatieri

In all your work, curatorial practice applied to architecture is central, and images, stories, and experiences play a fundamental role. Practicing architecture, therefore, is not only about the concrete essence of design, but also about building a broader infrastructure around it, capable of connecting architectural discourse with various social and cultural fields. How does curatorial practice fit into this mechanism, and from what reflections does your personal work on integration emerge?
I think I’ve partly already answered this, but thank you ‒ these are truly beautiful questions and not easy to receive. One of the greatest lessons I learned from the Radical movement and the 1960s generation ‒ especially from Germano Celant ‒ is the total adherence between art, architecture, and life. I have always held onto this teaching as a methodology for reinterpreting architecture today, and it is also why I use different media.
What I do is reinterpret cultural urgencies and what I feel most connected to personally, translating them into projects: I try to maintain a constant parallel between the academic-institutional world and a more “pop” discourse, to use a term from Superstudio. Essentially, everything I do stems from personal interests. For example, (T)rap&Architecture originates from a connection I have felt since childhood with hip hop and Italian underground rap. Although I come from Bologna and had a privileged education, I am the daughter of parents from more provincial backgrounds: my mother from the complex border context of the Bisiacaria in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and my father from public housing in the Mazzini district of Bologna. The project therefore also arises from a class perspective I developed growing up in a privileged school environment while knowing I did not belong to that world. When underground music became popular ‒ from neighborhood kids to Bocconi students ‒ I began to question this shift and sensed warning signs about how it could become a double-edged sword. So yes, I maintain a connection between architecture and life that manifests in multiple forms, and that is why my work has such a strong emotional and personal character.

The boundary between artwork and architectural work is often very thin, and the language of visual arts is frequently used to interpret architectural projects. In your research, do you see the art world as a transversal critical tool? Do you think there is a risk of aestheticization in using art and its criteria as a means of interpreting architecture?
This is precisely what I tried to investigate in my PhD thesis, developed over four years of extensive archival research. My methodology involved researching and collecting testimonies through oral histories, examining the relationship between art and architecture across centuries and through different forms of exploration. Certainly, for those unfamiliar with the topic, this might appear as a simple integration ‒ like Baroque churches, Domus, or Le Corbusier’s synthesis of the arts. In reality, what I have tried to show ‒ and what I believe is crucial today ‒ is how, particularly between the 1950s and 1970s, architects did not draw from art merely from an aesthetic perspective or with the aim of some sort of integration, but rather used artistic processes to define their practice.
In that period, few buildings were actually constructed, and architecture often used performance, the body, collage, photomontage, and editorial production as media. I therefore believe it is important to keep that experience alive and to understand how connections with other disciplines can provide new foundations and a new landscape for architecture.
This can take many forms, and it is what I pursue in different ways. For example, combining architecture with urban music (a term I don’t particularly like, but which works better academically) is for me a way of giving new foundations to an emerging idea of architecture. I hope this marks the beginning of shaping an inter-landscape made up of new voices that constantly intersect and intertwine with one another.

Alessia Leoni

Bianca Felicori

Bianca Felicori. Credits: Benedetta Andrea Bonaschi
Bianca Felicori. Credits: Benedetta Andrea Bonaschi
Giuseppe Perugini with Uga De Plaisant and Raynaldo Perugini, Casa Albero, Fregene, 1968-1975. Image credits: Archivio Studio Perugini
LIBERATO, “TU T’E SCURDAT’ ‘E ME,” 2017. Image credits: screenshot from the music video “TU T’E SCURDAT’ ‘E ME,” 2017; photographs of the architectural complex by Fabrizio Vatieri
Luigi Ciapparella, Extension of the Cemetery of Busto Arsizio, Italy, ca. 1970. Image credits: Stefano Perego
Ken Isaacs, Beach Matrix, Westport, Connecticut, 1967. Image credits: Archivio Vittorio Giorgini, Camilla Messini, Giovanni Presutti
Vittorio Giorgini, Casa Saldarini, Piombino, Italy, 1961-62. Image credits: Archives Nice Côte d’Azur – Ville de Nice, fonds Guy Rottier
Cesare Leonardi, Casa Mescoli-Goich, Modena, Italy, 1984-93. Image credits: Archivio Cesare Leonardi Progetti
Rkomi x TNS aka The Night Skinny, “Fuck Tomorrow,” 2016. Image credits: screenshots from the video of “Fuck Tomorrow,” 2016; photographs by Federico Torra

The text has been translated in English using AI
by

Alessia Leoni

March 26 · 26
A look at Italian art collecting with Giancarlo and Sandra Bonollo

IT

In this conversation, Giancarlo and Sandra Bonollo trace the birth and evolution of their interest in contemporary art, outlining an approach to collecting guided by curiosity, research, and openness to emerging languages. From the private dimension to the Foundation created in Thiene, in the province of Vicenza, what emerges is a vision of art as an experience to be shared, capable of sparking dialogue and opening up new ways of engaging with it.

Giancarlo and Sandra Bonollo operate in the world of contemporary art with a curious and attentive gaze, always in search of new languages and emerging artists. Their experience is no longer limited to private collecting, but translates into a concrete dialogue with the local area and the public through their Foundation in Thiene.
In this interview, they discuss the choices, insights, and challenges that have shaped their activity, offering a glimpse into Italian art collecting and the possibilities of making it a shared experience.

THE INTERVIEW WITH GIANCARLO AND SANDRA BONOLLO

How did your interest in contemporary art begin? Is it something that developed over time, or did it take shape around a significant experience?
Giancarlo Bonollo: Our interest in contemporary art has undoubtedly grown over time. It began with a friend who had a small gallery in Asiago. The starting point was also my passion for cinema and literature, which I have always shared with Sandra.

Do you remember the first artwork you purchased? What role did it play in shaping your journey as collectors?
The first artwork we purchased was a wooden sculpture by the German artist Stephan Balkenhol, at Monica De Cardenas gallery in Milan. We simply liked it. The same goes for the second work in our collection: a photograph by Nan Goldin, purchased in London from White Cube.

Is there a common thread that runs through your collection? If so, when and how did it take shape?
Giancarlo Bonollo: I’m not sure whether there is a common thread that defines our collection. My passion for contemporary art, along with continuous research, study, and curiosity for the new languages of the contemporary art scene, form the foundation of my collecting.

What are the main criteria that guide your acquisitions? What truly convinces you when you are in front of an artwork?
We are interested in young artists. The artworks we choose must “captivate” us, tell us something new, and appeal to us.

The Bonollo family

ART COLLECTING ACCORDING TO GIANCARLO AND SANDRA BONOLLO

When and why did you decide to turn a private collection into a foundation open to the public?
Giancarlo Bonollo: The idea of creating a foundation came from my wife about ten years ago. Then we reflected on the idea together for a long time. Sandra always believed that certain large-scale works, installations, videos, and museum-quality pieces should be shown and shared with the public, rather than left tucked away in storage. These were significant works in the trajectory of our collection, pieces we had loaned to museums across Europe, works with a history that risked being forgotten. We had even proposed temporary loans to some Italian institutions, but for various reasons ‒ including the pandemic ‒ it was impossible. At first, I wasn’t very convinced by Sandra’s idea, but after much reflection, we decided that the foundation should also aim to promote young Italian and international artists, fulfilling my wish to create a project to present new and emerging artists in Italy.

The foundation was born within a specific local context: how important was the connection with Thiene in its conception?
Giancarlo Bonollo: It wasn’t easy to choose the location for the foundation. Sandra and I considered various options, even outside our local area. Thanks to a friend who introduced us to the municipal administration of Thiene, we had the opportunity to visit some spaces owned by the city. The cultural councillor of Thiene showed us the building that houses the former Chiesetta delle Dimesse, and there we identified the ideal location. It was a chance encounter ‒ the former church immediately appealed to us. Opening a foundation to promote contemporary art in Thiene, a small provincial town, is a challenge for us, but the idea excited us from the very beginning.

Frieda Toranzo Jaeger. Visioni, installation view, Fondazione Bonollo, Thiene 2026. Photo Giovanni Canova

Why did you choose the former Chiesa delle Dimesse as the place to host your collection? What kind of dialogue did you want to establish between this historic space and contemporary art?
We chose this little church because, as I mentioned, the space literally captivated us. A small Baroque chapel, beautiful from an architectural point of view, rich in precious decorations, a deconsecrated place that once housed sacred art ‒ an ideal space to open its doors to contemporary art. The rooms adjacent to the church also seemed suitable for creating a white-cube space. For us, the chapel and surrounding spaces were perfect for hosting solo exhibitions of young artists as well as group exhibitions featuring works from the collection and those donated to the foundation.

What kind of role did you envision for the foundation within the contemporary art scene: a space for research, dialogue, or education?
For us, the foundation plays a role in promoting contemporary art, especially young artists ‒ a way to create it and make it known in our provincial territory. We hope that over time it will become a point of reference in the international contemporary art scene, particularly in terms of research.

THE ACTIVITIES AND GOALS OF THE BONOLLO FOUNDATION

How do you manage the relationship with contemporary and emerging artists promoted by the foundation through its exhibition program?
We try to choose artists who we consider “worthy”, artists who are not yet well-known or have not been exhibited in Italy. We always invite the selected artist to visit the foundation’s spaces before the exhibition, to do a walkthrough. The little church can be a challenging space for some artists. The artists we have invited so far have conceived and produced site-specific works, particularly those displayed on the altar. They stay with us for a few days, and we usually visit art cities or art sites that interest them. They return for the installation and the exhibition opening and stay with us for several more days, often as our guests at home.

How do you collaborate with the curators who organize exhibitions in your spaces? And how do you balance your personal vision with that of external professionals?
We collaborate with curators quite easily; usually, the artists communicate with them. We have a good relationship with Chiara Nuzzi, who curates the group exhibitions with works from our collection. We give her free rein. We, on the other hand, choose the artists and the foundation’s program.

From your point of view, does collecting have similarities with curatorial work?
No, it doesn’t seem so to us.

Annette Barcelo. Melamptha, installation view, Fondazione Bonollo, Thiene 2026. Photo Giovanni Canova

As collectors who have established a foundation, what do you believe is your responsibility on a cultural level and toward the public?
Our responsibility lies in doing our best to culturally promote the foundation’s activities, always hoping to engage the interest of visitors. So far, we are pleased with the relationship we have with the public, especially those from the local area, but also with people working in the art field. When we organize guided tours of the current exhibitions with our cultural mediator, we always have a great number of participants. This brings us great satisfaction.

How would you describe the state of collecting today, especially in Italy?
Giancarlo Bonollo: It is very different from when I first started collecting. There are many aspects to consider, and the discussion would be long. Perhaps in the past I saw a true passion for art in collectors; now I see that, during fairs, exhibitions, and events, everything has become an “event”, both in Italy and abroad.

What kind of relationship do you think collecting should have with Italian public institutions?
Giancarlo Bonollo: Collecting should have an open and collaborative relationship with public institutions. I believe it is often the public institutions that are reluctant to engage with collectors, usually for bureaucratic reasons or lack of interest. From our side, I must say that we have been, so to speak, fortunate, because with the municipal administration of Thiene we have had ‒ and still have ‒ a good collaborative relationship.

Valeria Eneide

The Sandra and Giancarlo Bonollo Foundation for Contemporary Art

The Bonollo family
Frieda Toranzo Jaeger. Visioni, installation view, Fondazione Bonollo, Thiene 2026. Photo Giovanni Canova
Frieda Toranzo Jaeger. Visioni, installation view, Fondazione Bonollo, Thiene 2026. Photo Giovanni Canova
Frieda Toranzo Jaeger. Visioni, installation view, Fondazione Bonollo, Thiene 2026. Photo Giovanni Canova
Frieda Toranzo Jaeger. Visioni, installation view, Fondazione Bonollo, Thiene 2026. Photo Giovanni Canova
Frieda Toranzo Jaeger. Visioni, installation view, Fondazione Bonollo, Thiene 2026. Photo Giovanni Canova
Frieda Toranzo Jaeger. Visioni, installation view, Fondazione Bonollo, Thiene 2026. Photo Giovanni Canova
Annette Barcelo. Melamptha, installation view, Fondazione Bonollo, Thiene 2026. Photo Giovanni Canova
Annette Barcelo. Melamptha, installation view, Fondazione Bonollo, Thiene 2026. Photo Giovanni Canova
Annette Barcelo. Melamptha, installation view, Fondazione Bonollo, Thiene 2026. Photo Giovanni Canova
Annette Barcelo. Melamptha, installation view, Fondazione Bonollo, Thiene 2026. Photo Giovanni Canova
Annette Barcelo. Melamptha, installation view, Fondazione Bonollo, Thiene 2026. Photo Giovanni Canova
Annette Barcelo. Melamptha, installation view, Fondazione Bonollo, Thiene 2026. Photo Giovanni Canova

The text has been translated in English using AI
by

Valeria Eneide

March 26 · 26
Humanity, food and nature: an interview with the artist and chef Moza Almatrooshi

IT

Moza Almatrooshi is a young Arab artist and pastry chef whose work blends art, food, humanity, and nature. Attracted by the symbolism in food, she now conducts cultural research and artistic practices involving art, food, her land, and those who inhabit and cultivate it. Almatrooshi defines herself as a living archive, conscious and responsible towards the environment and current events.

ballad is title of the new project by Moza Almatrooshi (Dubai, 1991). It is an art and culinary research where landscapes are transformed into menus shaped by seasonality and offered to the public through convivial gatherings. The theme of the meals varies from event to event, but it is always the result of careful artistic practice linked to the traditions and culture of the United Arab Emirates and Oman.
Starting from the origins of her artistic path and arriving to the “many worlds ahead to build”, Moza Almatrooshi told us about her need to communicate, cure, and preserve. The advice for young curators and artists is “to look within”.

Moza Almatrooshi. Photo: Arnold Barretto

THE INTERVIEW WITH MOZA ALMATROOSHI

Think back to your childhood and what you used to eat when you realized that your artistic practice would inevitably be linked to food. What flavors inspired you back then? When did you realize that this would be your path?
It actually didn’t start out that way for me. There is a trope for people who work with food that the love of cooking sprung from early memory but for me it was a slow burn romance. I grew up with a modest knowledge of cooking and baking but nothing that was worth noting as a spark that led to a flame. Progressively as my art practice evolved it took form in materialising ephemerality while looking at landscapes, earth matter, histories, and myths. In all of these thematics food entered in one way or another as a reality or as a symbol (or both). That’s how my practice expanded to involve food, and that’s where my love for food truly began.

Your early projects already featured food, but the result was more visual, performative and strictly artistic. Although the relational factor was already present in your projects, with ballad the approach is more methodological and purposeful and, above all, it requires that the food be actually consumed as a real meal. Tell us about the project, starting with the necessary sense of care, aesthetics, and sensory experience that offering food entails.
In the first instances of food appearing in my work, it was embodying symbolism and standing in for language. I started to question if I want to introduce cooking into the practice; at that time, it seemed art events were reducing art mediums like performances into event activations, and although I was not able to avoid that destiny in the future, I wanted to take time to challenge my own notions on food as an image, object, and encounter. After graduating from Slade School of Fine Arts, I enrolled in culinary school back home for the sole purpose of adding a skillset in furthering my art, but also picking up a vocation that can keep my practice and my life viable. ballad was founded years later, on the basis that it’s a studio that merges both my art & culinary worlds into one universe, one that generates its own projects as well as responds to community requests & commissions.

Moza Almatrooshi, ballad’s Edible Library project, in collaboration with architects Omar Darwish and Abdulla Abbas, 2025. Courtesy of Dubai Design Week

ART AND CURATORSHIP ACCORDING TO MOZA ALMATROOSHI

You describe the choice of seasonal ingredients, the act of purchasing them and the preparation of the dish in a very evocative way. Food is not just a medium; it almost becomes the protagonist. You research, choose, and compose: you communicate. All of this is similar to curatorial practice. Organizing the space, selecting what to show and how to do so are the prerogatives of the curator. Do you feel, in the broadest sense of the term, that you are also a curator? Would you like to curate a real exhibition? Regardless of whether food is the focus.
I tend to largely use the term conduit to describe my role in my work. Before ballad was founded, I started an on-going body of work titled The Agriculture School, in this work the main medium was a spatial installation around an active public program. There were talks, workshops, discussions, book clubs, all framed around a shared cooked meal. There were frequent admissions at that time that many participants were motivated by the food more than the content of the programme, only to be pulled into the discussions and shared knowledge naturally and inevitably. The first studio generated series via ballad, Eat the Landscape, which took groups of people out to the mountainous region of the UAE to eat a designed menu while being expertly guided by mountain guides, who also serve as researchers and collaborators. Seeing the success of this series to date and how the same admission about being motivated by trying the menu and get pleasantly surprised by the knowledge they then get to hold and take away with them as well.

When the work on display is placed at hand height, rather than on walls or pedestals, we naturally feel the urge to touch it. Today, haptic practices are very popular in exhibitions: visitors, especially younger ones, want to activate and feel artistic devices. In the installations you propose during ballad events, food is on the table and can ‒ must ‒ be touched. Do you think the success of the project also stems from its participatory and multisensory nature? Would your works still make sense without being consumed, but simply displayed?
Food is encountered in multiple ways via ballad; in Eat the Landscape we eat as we go within the landscape itself, in catered events I stand to greet and explain to guests while serving them, creating a necessary pause to explain the menu and the stories behind it, similar to dinner events. ballad also has a series called The Edible Library where materials, books, ingredients, and a edible outcomes are on a table that’s put together to present a research by a creative / cultural practitioner, while people eat they listen, feel, taste, exchange and see the research, immersing themselves in a live sensory format of knowledge dissemination that is framed by conviviality and joy, which are employed as essential mediums as well.

You curate your feed and the online narrative of your work in a thoughtful way, holding together your life, your creative vision, and the way you bring it to life. It almost seems as if you want to build a digital archive. Your storytelling seems to be the result of an urge to make yourself understood, but also to preserve and archive. Do you think this is due to the inevitably ephemeral nature of the medium you use? How do you feel about the fact that your work is destined to disappear after the meal?
The more I grow the less I can separate my practice from my embodied and lived experience. It’s a generative loop that’s moved by curiosity and community. Even if I didn’t turn it into a viable system I would still live and create this way. So, relaying this through storytelling and visuals on public platforms forms as a natural mélange due to the intertwining of these paths.

When you describe your work to the public, you always take great care to mention and thank those who accompanied you in the project and those who curated it. It may seem like a foregone conclusion, but it is not. How do you experience your relationship with those who curate your act of care towards food and with your guests?
Without community the work does not see the light. In order to create a menu, I need the land, I need to then connect with someone who knows something about it, works with it, loves it, has ties to it, then I need to step further to see the human and more than human actors within it, while counting myself in as well. Finally it needs to be held and retained by an audience who do more than just passively consume. The circle closes and starts again with every interaction, therefore it’s extremely important to highlight the horizontality of authorship and effort that goes into making it all come to life.

Moza Almatrooshi, performance derived from The Agriculture School, part of the exhibition On Foraging, 421 Arts Campus, 2022. The programme and performance were planned and cooked in collaboration with artist Nahla Al Tabbaa. Credits: Al Ameel. Courtesy of 421 Arts Campus

Just following you on social media is enough to understand how many interests, activities, and projects occupy your time. All linked by a common thread ‒ food ‒, they vary in type, practice and approach. How do you manage to balance everything? What advice would you give to young artists and curators to keep up with the pace that characterizes the current era?
My advice is to look within. I find that for some people they need me to verbally or visually connect the dots between all my curiosities, interests, and outcomes, but for me it all makes sense and feels like one thing led to another. This is because I haven’t lost touch with what the core of my practice is. Whether I am producing a film, performance, menu, experience, or object, it’s all born from one vast universe I keep feeding from within, and I’m very cautious about replicating other people’s work. It’s good to know how fine the line is between inspiration and referencing, versus extraction.

SELF AWARNESS AND FUTURE

Your feminist vision and the centrality of women in your work are evident. What does it mean for you to be a young Arab artist today? How does it affect the way you produce meaning and leave your mark?
Of course existing as both a woman and as an Arab I can only pull from my life experience to set the course of my life and work. When it comes to time though this gets warped for me as the time the land records and experiences is different than the time felt by my own body. Even how time passes in the city I live in versus the location of my kitchen studio in the desert, and the rural towns and areas I work in stretches and contracts within differing sets of rules. I feel the most attuned as a being of nature that will exist and leave a mark in more ways than one but hopefully it is experienced as I am living as a living archive of the land, both in the ephemeral and lasting sense.

Venice plays an important role in your artistic training. According to you, your work experience at the Biennale led you towards the world of art. Would you return to the Lagoon? In recent years, there have been an increasing number of initiatives in Venice aimed at bringing together food, the island and social issues. Would you like to explore these food-related realities further and perhaps initiate collaborations?
I would return to any place that feels contextually relevant to share a narrative in. When I had my work experience there over a decade ago, I was still very fresh in terms of the access I had to viewing art and engaging in discourse outside of my art programme in university. It was pivotal but broad in every sense, so I would be happy to enter that space again after all these years of compounded experience and specificity.

Are you satisfied with what you have achieved so far? How do you think your relationship with food will evolve?
Yes! I’m satisfied enough to still imagine many worlds ahead to build and cultivate within my universe. Sometimes that makes it seem like I am still far away from achieving what I have planned, but when I get moments of repose I can see that it’s just as organic as planting seeds, and that I already have a sprouting and lush garden.
I can see my relationship with food continuing to enable me to bring people and land-based knowledge together, and hopefully this has potency in revising our relationship with ecology as well, another urgent theme of our lifetime.

Vittoria Colagiovanni

Moza Almatrooshi

Moza Almatrooshi, performance derived from The Agriculture School, part of the exhibition On Foraging, 421 Arts Campus, 2022. The programme and performance were planned and cooked in collaboration with artist Nahla Al Tabbaa. Credits: Al Ameel. Courtesy of 421 Arts Campus
Moza Almatrooshi, performance derived from The Agriculture School, part of the exhibition On Foraging, 421 Arts Campus, 2022. The programme and performance were planned and cooked in collaboration with artist Nahla Al Tabbaa. Credits: Al Ameel. Courtesy of 421 Arts Campus
Moza Almatrooshi, performance derived from The Agriculture School, part of the exhibition On Foraging, 421 Arts Campus, 2022. The programme and performance were planned and cooked in collaboration with artist Nahla Al Tabbaa. Credits: Al Ameel. Courtesy of 421 Arts Campus
Moza Almatrooshi, ballad’s Edible Library project, in collaboration with architects Omar Darwish and Abdulla Abbas, 2025. Courtesy of Dubai Design Week
Moza Almatrooshi. Photo: Arnold Barretto
by

Vittoria Colagiovanni

March 12 · 26
When museums meet contemporary art: the Museo Nazionale della Montagna in Turin

IT

We are launching a new column dedicated to museums that embrace art, particularly contemporary art. Each case study has specific characteristics that deserve attention. In this in-depth analysis, we talk about the Museo Nazionale della Montagna in Turin, which focuses on accessibility and promoting a sense of community. We discussed this with Andrea Lerda, curator of the “Sustainability Programme” and contemporary art initiatives developed by the museum.

The initiatives promoted by the Museo Nazionale della Montagna are interdisciplinary projects inspired by a strong sense of care, which should be implicit in curatorship. Thanks to a well-structured public programme, the establishment of a solid relationship between the museum and the city of Turin, and the involvement of experts and scientific researchers in the development of exhibition and research activities, the Museo Nazionale della Montagna caters to a diverse audience and addresses essential issues using accessible language. To break down the wall of art that speaks only to itself, the projects curated by Andrea Lerda (Cuneo, 1983) within the “Sustainability Programme” – which brings together the cycle of exhibitions launched by the museum in 2018 – create a bridge between two apparently distant dimensions. In this way, despite its non-artistic origins, the Museo Nazionale della Montagna has earned a place on the contemporary art scene.

Andrea Lerda

THE INTERVIEW WITH ANDREA LERDA

What are the main characteristics of your curatorial practice and what are your areas of interest?
Environmental issues are certainly at the centre of my interests, which I observe from a social and anthropological perspective as well as an ecological one. Ecological issues and reflections on community are two tracks that go hand in hand in my practice, the result of a sensitivity towards the ethics of nature that materialised in a completely unexpected way. Perhaps this is due to my origins, but certainly thanks to my studies with Serenella Iovino: one of the most extraordinary philosophers on an international level, one of the most authoritative voices in the field of ecocriticism and now a full professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Since around 2000, I have realised that my intuition was leading me to meet artists and researchers focused on the complex relationship between humans and everything that is other than human. Twenty years ago, inventive minds in Italy and abroad were becoming increasingly aware of the devastating impact of human activity on the environment. In the period that followed, the different facets of this complex scenario were explored and analysed in an increasingly recurrent and in-depth manner by art and artistic institutions. Today, these reflections are at the forefront of daily debate in the cultural sphere, not only thanks to the dissemination of the ideas of philosophers and authoritative researchers, but also because of a series of economic, social and political events. Furthermore, the intensification of extreme events induced by global warming has contributed to making it increasingly urgent to take a stand, making post-anthropocentric and post-human perspectives the object and subject of research and programming in many museums, as well as in the art system in general. My curatorial practice is guided by a strong sense of social responsibility, by the need to make art and the figure of the artist increasingly central to contemporary society. I believe in the cross-fertilisation that develops through dialogue between different fields of knowledge, and therefore in dialogue with people and their involvement in a complex process of knowledge and awareness-raising. I believe in contemporary languages as places where different disciplines meet, but also as tools to be used in an inclusive, accessible and transversal way. Finally, I believe in the real contribution of these languages to human evolution.

How did your experience at the Museo Nazionale della Montagna begin? How does your practice within the museum relate to the themes of community and ecology?
The museum is an institution that recently celebrated its 150th anniversary. It is a historical reality not only because of its long history and deep roots in Italian culture, but also because it is the guardian of a very important legacy. This legacy is that of the mountains, a subject that encompasses all areas of life, representing both a place and an ever-evolving imagery, now more than ever central to the social, economic, political and environmental debate that characterises the challenges of the present and the future.
The museum is directed by Daniela Berta who, since her arrival in 2018, has decided to embark on a path of renewal, combining the work of promoting the historical heritage of the mountains – as well as its protagonists – with a programme that focuses on contemporary languages as a tool for critical investigation of the present. This was an inevitable choice for such an ancient theme, which needed to be updated with all due care and brought into the present, ready to reaffirm its extraordinary centrality. Daniela Berta’s decision was therefore to work with contemporary art and to focus on the theme of sustainability. This is why I joined the museum in 2018.
Today, I believe I can say that we are one of the few institutions in Italy to have created what we call the “Sustainability Programme”: a tool with a specific thematic and visual identity that aims to be a constantly active device for dissemination and ecological awareness. Through exhibitions, art-science projects, community experiences, performances, educational and outreach activities – both on-site and online, as well as outside the museum – we try to address the multifaceted and kaleidoscopic nature of sustainability, while also reflecting on the opportunities that critical issues can offer. Dialogue with people, local areas, the academic and scientific worlds, and anything else that can bring the museum into dialogue with the community is fundamental.

Considering this desire to open the museum to contemporary art and therefore to its use, do you think that contemporary artistic language can be a good vehicle for engaging the public?
With the new management, we have worked towards a 360-degree opening. Not only in terms of contemporary art and the “Sustainability Programme”, but also in terms of historical storytelling, which – thanks to the work of the deputy director, Marco Ribetti, and the curator of the Historical Photo Library, Veronica Lisino – presents the museum’s collections through an updated narrative structure, bringing themes and materials up to date so that they become trans-temporal mediators rather than mere testimonies of the past.
Since then (2018), the museum has completely revamped its image, opening up to new audiences. Today, we see the positive results in the number of visitors; in the museum’s recognition at local, national and international level; in the collaborations with Italian and foreign organisations and institutions that have been developed in recent years; and in the presence we have gradually built up with the local community and new audiences.
This entire journey has been a natural process, albeit a complex one, and it is still ongoing. It is a journey that deserves a series of interesting reflections on the need and possibility of transforming historical museums in response to time and events. In my opinion, contemporary art is a fundamental tool for translating the present and for dialoguing with stimuli from the world. While remaining convinced that it is essential to make its languages and content accessible, contemporary art is an important medium for interacting with the community and encouraging the more traditional audience (which has always been linked to the institution) to approach new imaginaries. The museum’s openness to contemporary languages goes hand in hand with its constant efforts to open up to the city and the local scene, understood as places of reality. It is no coincidence that performative languages have been the protagonists of events that have deliberately taken shape in public spaces: from Marinella Senatore’s Post Water Choreography Project to the actions of the public programme Walking Mountains Social Walks.
As in the principle of communicating vessels, the sensitivity of artists has played a role of social mediation between the inside and the outside, using encounters and exchanges as creative and awareness-raising opportunities that activate a relationship between the city and the museum, and vice versa. The choice was therefore not simply to use contemporary art tout court, but to conduct organic work on the museum as a hybrid organism. This hybridisation brings with it the need for interference and the awareness that encounters can give rise to enriching and innovative experiences with respect to conventional narrative, exhibition, and communication methods.

Marinella Senatore, Post Water Choreography Project, 2019. Performance as part of the exhibition. Post Water Turin, various venues. Courtesy of the artist and the Museo Nazionale della Montagna

What audiences are your initiatives aimed at?
The museum’s programme is aimed at a wide audience. This is thanks to its nature and the hybrid dimension it has built up in recent years. I don’t think it’s that common to find an institution that has a historical collection, a photo library, a video library, a library (in our case, the Italian Alpine Club’s National Library), an artistic programme with a historical and archival focus, a contemporary art programme, a “Sustainability Programme”, as well as educational, outreach and research activities and the production of external projects. All this has a strong impact on the wide variety of content offered and the audiences that access it. Furthermore, I would like to reiterate our commitment to accessibility and readability, which is central to our proposals. While we are aware of the economic constraints that make this work complex, we do our best to constantly improve in this regard.

I consider this aspect of accessibility and readability to be important, as it defines a certain type of contemporary art, which is not everything. Unfortunately, there is still a wall of elitist art that represents a major problem.
Personally, I like collaborating with artists who interpret the social value of art in a coherent and authentic way. In other words, people who are not only interested in talking about themselves and their practice, but who choose to work and make their intuition available to the community to contribute to the debate on the significant issues of the present and the future. In this sense, I wonder what an artist is today, how to build innovative ways to integrate creativity and visionary capacity into everyday life. Since ours is not a contemporary art museum in the strict sense, but a “contemporary” museum – in its broadest and most current meaning – we have the freedom to try to turn it from an archive of the past into a sort of playground where different types of time, themes and actors meet.
I believe that, in our case, this is the right way to break down the wall that very often – even today – leads people to say they do not understand contemporary art.
We have no shortage of utopian ideas and visions, even if they are guided by real objectives and application scenarios. It must be said that the complexity of identifying adequate economic resources makes this transformation process slow and protracted.

THE PROJECTS OF THE MUSEO NAZIONALE DELLA MONTAGNA

The exhibition The New Orchestra. From mountain communities to the community of the future, open until 31 May 2026, presents the duality of tracks you mentioned at the beginning. On the one hand, there is the theme of nature and the mountains, but there is also this aspect of community. How was it to conduct this project?
The project is part of the “Sustainability Programme” and is the latest chapter in a linked narrative that has taken shape over the previous eight years. After exhibitions that were more research-based and, in some ways, ecological denunciations, guided by a comparison with contemporary philosophical and scientific thought, at a certain point I asked myself: “Isn’t it time to start again from us and rediscover the sense of caring for others, understood as human beings?” This question shifts the focus of the problem to a more intimate dimension, entering the sphere of intimate and interpersonal relationships. This is because I believe that great philosophical reflections, which are certainly necessary to force a reinterpretation of paradigms, must be accompanied by content that allows the public to transfer the concept of change into their daily lives. In this way, change will be effective, measurable, and concrete.
The New Orchestra therefore starts with people. It questions the possibility of community well-being generated by the rediscovery of a sense of collaboration, participation and mutual support. It also questions how this well-being can, in turn, produce an ecosystemic welfare with positive repercussions for everything around us: mountains, forests, marine ecosystems and fauna included. The exhibition stems from this desire to regenerate a sense of community and commonality that has been lost for distinct reasons.
What better example, then, than mountain communities, historically the repositories of that sense of mutual help and support necessary to live in the “High Lands”, to activate a series of reflections projected into the future? The community spirit with which people have inhabited these places in the past can stimulate a rethinking of today’s degraded lifestyles, guiding young people who want to invest in these places and in a better world in the complex process of rewriting the rules of the game.

This project origins from six residences in different mountainous areas spread across the Alps and Apennines. How were the projects chosen?
With The New Orchestra, we chose to meet with communities, particularly young people who have decided to stay, return or who have found a new beginning in mountain areas. We discovered that – despite the great complexities of living in these places and the lack of support for inland areas – the mountains are a lively and vital place, where it is possible to rewrite contemporary paradigms and create alternative models for community building. Hence the choice of the exhibition’s subtitle, From Mountain Communities to the Community of the Future, which guided the entire narrative of the exhibition project.
Six figures are involved, four Italian and two international, chosen thanks to the contribution of three other curators: Sofia Baldi Pighi, Gabriele Lorenzoni and Alexandra Mihali. The selected artists, Hannes Egger, Olivia Mihălţianu, Rebecca Moccia, plurale, Eugenio Tibaldi and Emilija Škarnulytė, spent a period of approximately two weeks in residence in dialogue with one of the six communities identified in five locations spread across five regions of the Alps and Apennines (Piedmont, Valle d’Aosta, Lombardy, Trentino-Alto Adige and Emilia-Romagna). Here, they listened to the territory and its stories, thanks to the mediation and fundamental collaboration of third sector organisations, associations, foundations, museums, and public and private entities already operating in the area. This is how this highly structured and decidedly enriching collaboration came about, allowing for the exploration of various themes and giving rise to six new works that are currently on display in the exhibition. In this sense, the exhibition project is only the latest chapter in a long story, which in some respects is not so easy to convey to the public.
Once again, this is an exhibition that is not limited to the artistic aspect but is structured around a parallel series of contents from different disciplinary fields: from ethnomusicology to sociology and anthropology. In this way, the public is led to encounter the stimuli of the artists but, if they wish, they could explore a series of purely technical issues or encounter points of view that allow for a deeper and more critical immersion.

The New Orchestra. From Mountain Communities to the Community of the Future Exhibition view, 2025. Photo: Mariano Dallago. Courtesy Museo Nazionale della Montagna

What projects did the Museo Nazionale della Montagna develop prior to The New Orchestra?
The first exhibition we presented, in what would later become the “Sustainability Programme”, was Post Water (2018). This was an artistic and scientific project that addressed the impact of global warming on aquatic ecosystems, opening our eyes to a series of possible scenarios. On this occasion, the artistic and scientific installations, together with the dialogue with the historical collections of Museo Nazionale della Montagna, created a dense short circuit of references between the past and the future.
The exhibition was redesigned under the title Under Water (2019). It thus became an exhibition that favoured a generative perspective over a catastrophic one, guided by research into nature-based solutions: in other words, the possibility of mitigating the effects of the climate crisis by adopting techniques learned from the workings of nature and its self-generating power.
Then came Tree Time (2019), also scientific in nature and in dialogue with the museum’s collections. This exhibition arrived, quite unexpectedly, at a significant (in a negative sense) moment in history for forest and woodland ecosystems worldwide. It was the aftermath of Storm Vaia and the major fires in California, which presented devastating (in some ways post-apocalyptic) scenarios, now subject to a dangerous process of media normalisation. Thanks to the involvement of Matteo Garbelotto, Director of the Forest Pathology and Mycology Lab at Berkeley and adjunct professor at the Environmental Science, Policy and Management Department of the University of California, a project was launched focusing on the contributions of science to the management and care of forest and woodland heritage. This led to a collaboration with MUSE – the Science Museum of Trento, which hosted an updated version of the exhibition.
In 2020, we developed a research project entitled Ecophilia, born from a discussion with Ruyu Hung – Professor of Philosophy of Education at National Chiayi University in Taiwan – who, in 2017, coined this term, which combines two concepts: “biophilia” and “topophilia”.

What is ecophilia and what were the key themes of the exhibition?
The Ecophilia exhibition focused on the feeling of physical and emotional connection between the human species and everything that is non-human, as well as on the possibility of rediscovering and training this sense through an eco-pedagogical approach. Alongside necessary political, economic, cultural and social actions, Ruyu Hung defines the characteristics of a new educational model which, by acting on mental and behavioural mechanisms and intervening in teaching methodologies, can develop a collective feeling of empathy, or ecophilia, with the world. In this sense, Ecophilia broadens the vision from the artistic to the social sphere, laying the foundations for the observation of the mountain as a privileged place for the eco-pedagogy theorised by Hung.
The exhibition, which featured six artists working in Turin, produced six new works and was the result of a prolonged process of interaction with philosophers, anthropologists, sustainability, and mountain culture experts, in a multidisciplinary dialogue with the artists and the curator. Among those involved were: Rosi Braidotti − Philosopher and Distinguished University Professor at Utrecht University; Giuseppe Barbiero − Biologist and Professor of Ecology at the University of Valle d’Aosta; Ruyu Hung; Enrico Camanni − writer, journalist, and mountaineering historian; Paolo Cresci − Associate Director, Head of Sustainability and Infrastructure at Arup in Milan.
Ecophilia therefore marked a sort of evolution compared to Post Water and Tree Time. From an approach that was more openly critical of the problem, to an attempt to investigate and propose new, generative and alternative scenarios, with a focus on the possibility of addressing critical issues through positive and optimistic imagery.

Have there been other exhibitions proposing new positive scenarios on this topic?
Next came The Mountain Touch (2022), an art-science exhibition that took precisely this approach. The idea arose from a series of scientific studies on the positive impact of nature on our biological and psychological well-being. The works on display explored the visible and invisible benefits of human exposure to natural environments. Once again, the voice of science was fundamental, thanks to the involvement of Qing Li, immunologist and president of the Japanese Society of Forest Medicine (University of Tokyo); the Cavalieri Ottolenghi Neuroscience Institute of the University of Turin; and the Centre for Behavioural Sciences and Mental Health of the Italian National Institute of Health, among others. This exhibition has also been restaged at MUSE and further expanded in terms of content.
Another project developed through extensive research, thanks to artistic and performance experiences born in the cross-border territory between Italy and France, was Stay With Me ‒ The Mountain as a Space of Resonance: an exhibition featuring sound artist Magda Drozd and walking artist Michael Höpfner, involved in a project to engage with local territories and communities to talk about resonance. This experience subsequently gave rise to Walking Mountains (2024): a large collective exhibition that included the works of around twenty artists who base their practice on walking. It was not an exhibition on Walking Art, but rather an exhibition that proposed walking as an opportunity to immerse oneself in mountain contexts and to rethink our way of being in contact with the world. Crossing the mountains on foot thus became an opportunity for a new dialogue with otherness, a tool for an evolution of feeling; an experience of renewal of individual and collective consciousness, but also a radical act – both intimate and political – of disobedience and revolution. The project involved Hamish Fulton (founder of Walking Art) as an exceptional mentor alongside Michael Höpfner, and was a tribute to a figure who has always declared the inseparable link between walking and art.

The Mountain Touch. A Voyage in Healing Nature, Exhibition view of the Museomontagna exhibition at MUSE – Museo delle Scienze, Trento, 2024. Courtesy MUSE and Museo Nazionale della Montagna

CURATORSHIP ACCORDING TO ANDREA LERDA

What significance do you attribute to public programmes? Do you consider them complementary to the exhibition in which they are included?
All these exhibitions are usually enriched by public programmes that take place both inside and outside the museum. I believe that public programmes can be a fundamental tool, especially if the institution has the adequate resources to create engaging programmes with a convincing impact, in terms of both quality and quantity. Nevertheless, they also remain important as an opportunity to experiment with new models of interaction with the public. Whenever possible, we have chosen to complement more traditional events (such as talks and presentations) with on-site performances in the woods surrounding the museum and in the city. What is stimulating is “taking things outside”: the museum and its identity, as well as the exhibition and its contents, seizing the opportunities offered by contact between the institution and the community. This is the experience of Walking Mountains Social Walks, a public performance programme presented between 2024 and 2025.

In 2014, you founded Platform Green. Where did the idea to open an online “curatorial platform” come from, and what are its goals?
It was born from that intuition I mentioned earlier and from the need to share, through an open platform accessible to anyone, not only the results of my research and encounters, but also the urgency of issues that were close to my heart. Platform Green responds to the desire to create something shared and potentially useful. Furthermore, at that time, there weren’t many online spaces with such specific themes. Over time, research on artists involved in ecological issues, studio visits, chats, readings and visits to exhibitions on these themes became so extensive that I decided to collect them in a sort of archive available to everyone, without any pretensions in terms of positioning or anything else. Over time, Platform Green has undergone a more “physical” evolution, thanks to the collaborations and projects that have emerged from this research. Today, it continues its journey, albeit much less intensely in terms of publications, as the time I have available to curate its content is extremely limited.

Which of your projects are you most attached to?
I feel a very strong connection to my homeland, which is, not surprisingly, mountainous, where I have been collaborating with the Art.ur association in Cuneo for a long time now. With them, I am mainly involved in two projects: Living Room and Connecting Worlds. The first is an artist residency, which every year brings four artists to the city of Cuneo and its surrounding area for an experience of discovery, research, and production. Each edition is dedicated to a specific theme and is brought to life thanks to the collaboration of numerous public and private bodies, as well as local communities. The second is a sort of festival, created in 2022 upon the Gesso e Stura River Park (Parco Fluviale Gesso e Stura) commission. Their request was to produce a project that could raise awareness among young people and the local community about the climate emergency. I therefore chose to respond to this commission not with a traditional exhibition, but by working in the public space and creating an unconventional event (at least as far as the contemporary art scene is concerned) that could intercept and engage people directly, in a familiar and non-institutional way.
In its first two editions, Connecting Worlds took shape inside three large Civil Protection tents, venues far removed from conventional art spaces. The tents, set up in the historic centre of the city, represent accessible spaces containing works by Italian and international artists, in dialogue with voices from the world of science. Everyone is welcome: all are invited to enjoy free visual stimuli, artistic experiences, read content, learn new concepts, and reconnect with natural ecosystems. Connecting Worlds was born as an experiment, but since its first edition it has been a remarkable success, gaining the support of stakeholders and supporters over time. This is also thanks to the collaboration with Ferrino, our partner, which allows us to present the project inside its tents. In the last two editions, these spaces have been updated, allowing the project to take shape inside a special tent (Tenda Ferrino 1870, conceived by Anna Ferrino and designed by Moreno Ferrari). Connecting Worlds is, in a way, a testament to my approach and my interest in focusing on the ability of art and artists to connect with society, encouraging reflection and participation.

Laboratorio Montagna. Museo Città Territori. Sistemi in divenire. Exhibition view, 2022. Photo: Mariano Dallago. Courtesy Museo Nazionale della Montagna

You will be involved in curating Fort Biennale 2026 (Fortezza Fortress, Bozen) and Trienala Ladina (San Martino in Badia): how do you see these assignments within your curatorial career?
I am delighted to be curating the second edition of Fort Biennale and the eighth edition of Trienala Ladina in 2026. My personal or professional gratification is not my primary motivation – although I am aware that these are two extremely enriching experiences for my career as a curator and for my general education – but rather the opportunity to amplify the resonance of certain messages and values that guide my research. Not to mention the work we are conducting with the “Sustainability Programme” at the Museo Nazionale della Montagna. I interpret and experience these two moments as opportunities for further growth and for forging new synergies and alliances. Here too, the focus will be on the artists. In the case of the Biennale – which I am curating together with Hannes Egger and Veronika Vascotto – the researchers at Eurac Research in Bozen will also be involved.

And what about your future projects?
I am working on a programme of talks to accompany the exhibition The New Orchestra, which will take shape between March and April in various locations, at the museum and in the mountain areas of Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta. We are also working on the next exhibition, which we will present in conjunction with Artissima 2026: it will be a group exhibition focusing on the need to reposition the female dimension within the mountain universe. This is not a feminist project, but rather a narrative of the fundamental need to rediscover the unique characteristics of women and the human traits that define them as saviours of post-capitalist society, and for this reason – historically – hindered. Thanks to the collaboration with journalist and writer Linda Cottino, who will attempt to activate a dialogue between past and future – projecting visitors into a space intended as a device through which to live a transformative experience – an historical perspective will support the contemporary narrative.

Are you satisfied by the projects conducted at the Museo Nazionale della Montagna?
Despite the complexities and limited resources available, we are doing a great job, trying to make this place increasingly open to the outside world. We are aware that today the museum is no longer a place strictly linked to communities affiliated with the CAI (Italian Alpine Club) universe, but rather a tool capable of interacting with society in general, which finds here a critical space for reflection and a wide range of themes and content.
We are planning many initiatives for the next three years to further strengthen the role of the institution through actions to enhance the Permanent Collection, co-design, relations with Italian and international cultural entities, and synergy with the city and the public.

Rebecca Canavesi

Museo Nazionale della Montagna

Andrea Lerda

Emilija Škarnulytė, Ofiolite, 2025. Artwork view in the exhibition The New Orchestra. From Mountain Communities to the Community of the Future, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and the Museo Nazionale della Montagna
Fabio Roncato, Momentum. View of the site-specific installation on the panoramic terrace of Museomontagna, 2024. Photo: Maria Chiara Piglione. Courtesy of the artist
Marinella Senatore, Post Water Choreography Project, 2019. Performance as part of the exhibition Post Water. Courtesy of the artist and the Museo Nazionale della Montagna
Marinella Senatore, Post Water Choreography Project, 2019. Performance as part of the exhibition. Post Water Turin, various venues. Courtesy of the artist and the Museo Nazionale della Montagna
Sibylle Duboc, The March of the Glaciers, 2025. Itinerant performance as part of the Walking Mountains Social Walks program Turin city centre and various venues. Photo: Geordy Bergerone. Courtesy of the artist, Museo Nazionale della Montagna and Mucho Mas!, Turin
The New Orchestra. From Mountain Communities to the Community of the Future Exhibition view, 2025. Photo: Mariano Dallago. Courtesy Museo Nazionale della Montagna
STAY WITH ME. The Mountain as a Space of Resonance, 2024. View of artworks by Magda Drozd and Michael Höpfner in the exhibition. Photo: Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano. Courtesy of the artists and Museo Nazionale della Montagna
STAY WITH ME. The Mountain as a Space of Resonance, 2024. Exhibition view. Photo: Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano. Courtesy Museo Nazionale della Montagna
The Mountain Touch. A Voyage in Healing Nature, Exhibition view of the Museomontagna exhibition at MUSE – Museo delle Scienze, Trento, 2024. Courtesy MUSE and Museo Nazionale della Montagna
Andrea Lerda
Laboratorio Montagna. Museo Città Territori. Sistemi in divenire. Exhibition view, 2022. Photo: Mariano Dallago. Courtesy Museo Nazionale della Montagna
Eugenio Tibaldi, Marginal Heights, 2025. Artwork view in the exhibition The New Orchestra. From Mountain Communities to the Community of the Future. Photo: Mariano Dallago. Courtesy of the artist and the Museo Nazionale della Montagna
Walking Mountains, Exhibition view, 2024. Photo: Maria Chiara Piglione. Courtesy Museo Nazionale della Montagna
Where to Stop? Performance by the artist Linda Jasmin Mayer presented for the opening of the exhibition Walking Mountains, 2024. Photo: Maria Chiara Piglione. Courtesy of the artist and the Museo Nazionale della Montagna
Walking Mountains, Exhibition view, 2024. Photo: Maria Chiara Piglione. Courtesy Museo Nazionale della Montagna
Post Water, Exhibition view, 2018. Photo: Mariano Dallago. Courtesy Museo Nazionale della Montagna

The text has been translated in English using AI
by

Rebecca Canavesi

March 12 · 26
Curating online exhibitions between art and technology: the interview with Valentina Tanni

IT

In her latest book, “Antimacchine. Mancare di rispetto alla tecnologia”, curator and art historian Valentina Tanni explores the possibility of disrespecting machines, breaking free from the dogmas they impose. This conversation delves into the relationship between art, technology and web culture and how it has changed over time.

The curator and art historian Valentina Tanni (Rome, 1976) focuses on a particular area of research, the relationship between art, technology and web culture. This is a field that is still underestimated in an academic context, despite the fact that these issues are generating increasing interest. Tanni herself, for example, teaches Digital Media Culture and Meme Culture and Aesthetics at the Department of Communication and Media Studies at John Cabot University in Rome, and her research has resulted in a series of publications, including Exit reality. Vaporwave, backrooms, weirdcore and other landscapes beyond the threshold (NERO, 2023. English version in 2024) and the recent Antimacchine. Mancare di rispetto alla tecnologia, published by Einaudi in 2025.
We tried to understand, together with Valentina Tanni, what role web culture plays in the contemporary landscape and in art history, discovering that, ultimately, its roots are deeper than one might think.

Valentina Tanni

THE INTERVIEW WITH VALENTINA TANNI

Since the early 2000s, your studies and work as a curator, theorist, author and lecturer have focused on the relationship between art and technology, using the web and its dynamics as a field of investigation. How has this relationship changed over the last two decades?
The relationship between art and technology is constantly evolving. Not only because the technological tools available increase and change over time, but above all because the very concept of art is highly unstable: it changes according to the historical moment, the geographical location, and the specific communities that practise it.
In general, I would say that in this part of the world, over the last two decades, artistic experimentation with technology has become much more frequent and visible. The approaches have also become much more diverse.

In 2003, you curated L’oading, an exhibition dedicated to works based on the creation of patches ‒ modifications to existing video games. What was the significance of the exhibition at the time, and what significance and characteristics would it have today?
The exhibition included numerous modified video games, but also some software produced entirely by artists, as well as works inspired by the world of gaming in general. In 2003, it was a deliberately unconventional project: the idea of bringing video games into a museum was still perceived as strange. For this reason, the exhibition attracted the attention of the press and even ended up on television. However, it was not discussed in relation to artistic languages, but rather as a “curiosity”. My goal, on the other hand, was to show how artists were able to appropriate the medium of video games and transform it. Not only to produce new aesthetics, but above all to investigate and question it.
Game art was also part of a broader movement that also included net art and software art, one of the most interesting things that happened in art between the 1990s and the 2010s.
Another aspect concerned the immateriality of the works: the entire exhibition was contained in a dozen CDs, which I personally carried in my backpack from Rome to Syracuse.
Today, video game modification is a widespread and recognised practice, both within and outside the art world, so the exhibition would probably no longer have the disruptive impact it had back then. However, I think some of the works I selected at the time would still be powerful today, especially if installed in a museum. I am thinking, for example, of Adam Killer by Brody Condon.

Brody Condon, Adam Killer, 2000 – L’oading, Museo Montevergini, Siracusa, 2023

Can curating online spaces improve accessibility to certain artistic practices? In what way?
If the works in question originate online (net art, software art, online performance), it makes sense for them to be enjoyed within their own ecosystem. Curating online spaces makes sense first and foremost in these cases. This does not mean that digital works cannot also be taken outside, but in that case a process of “translation” is carried out that transforms them more or less radically.

TECHNOLOGY AND ART HISTORY

You have often reflected on sludge content, a type of content based on hyperstimulation and presented simultaneously on screen, defining it as a pure signal that does not convey any kind of message. Are there any examples in art history that could be considered the ancestors of this type of content?
Yes, it is possible, especially if we think of all the movements that have worked on overload, fragmentation and nonsense. A first reference is Futurism, in particular words in free form: texts, signs and images coexisted simultaneously on the surface, focusing more on sensory impact than on conveying a message. Another possible antecedent is Dadaism, which, through collages and random combinations, challenged the very idea of communication. However, we are talking about affinities that are mainly formal and perceptual, given that these phenomena arose in profoundly different contexts.
In the case of sludge content, these dynamics seem to emerge mainly from the logic of digital platforms and hyperstimulation as a permanent perceptual condition.

Your research often originates on social media and platforms such as Reddit. What tools do you use to study Internet subcultures?
I explore digital spaces where people meet, talk, produce images and sounds, and share ideas and cultural objects. I go wherever online cultures take me: on social media platforms, forums, YouTube, Discord channels, and mailing lists. I combine exploration and direct participation with study: reading articles, books, and interviews.

Arte-19 _ Virus Virtual Reality Game, 2020

In an article written for Lucy, you discussed gnomecore, a digital niche that identifies the figure of the gnome as the celebration of an idyllic model of bucolic life. There is extensive literature on this subject, dating back as far as the 1970s. Are there other digital niches that refer, perhaps unconsciously, to past stories and mythologies?
Yes, many Internet aesthetics draw on imagery and mythology from the past. I am thinking, for example, of cottagecore, which reworks 19th-century pastoral and romantic myths, or dark academia, which stems from the romanticisation of classical knowledge. Witchcore and fairycore also draw on folklore, fairy tales and magical traditions.

In your book Exit Reality, you focus on backrooms, a set of levels outside reality that become increasingly dangerous the deeper you go and from which it is virtually impossible to escape. In your opinion, what motivates people to become fascinated by disturbing topics online?
I believe that these issues resonate with people because they give visible form to widespread fears that are difficult to name, such as disorientation, loss of control and the sense of profound unease that characterises this moment in history.

CURATORSHIP AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

What technical problems can arise when curating exhibitions with digital works? Have you ever encountered difficulties when putting together an exhibition?
The technical problems that can arise are endless. Literally anything can happen: the software may malfunction or be incompatible with the devices available; the media may break, the lighting conditions may be very difficult to manage; the audio of the different works may conflict, etc. (I could go on for another two pages!).
I have always found myself having to solve all kinds of problems when setting up the exhibitions I have curated, which is why I always recommend testing everything well in advance, so that you always have time to come up with a plan B. When I curated my first exhibition (Netizens. Cittadini della rete, Rome, Sala 1, 2002), for example, one of the works was I Shot Andy Warhol by Cory Arcangel; the Nintendo console on which the modified software ran had arrived from the United States and literally burned out due to the difference in voltage (we had an adapter but it didn’t work properly). I bought a new console, but once it arrived at the gallery, I discovered that in Italy the cartridges were slightly different in size, so Arcangel’s cartridge was not compatible. In the end, I was forced to run the work on an emulator. It was a great disappointment, but also a lesson I have never forgotten. Since then, I always expect anything and everything and I am ready for anything.
Moreover, the problems do not end when the installation is complete: digital works require constant maintenance, and often the staff working in museums/galleries are not trained or paid to perform this task.

Martina Leva

Valentina Tanni

Arte-19 _ Virus Virtual Reality Game, 2020
Brody Condon, Adam Killer, 2000 – L’oading, Museo Montevergini, Siracusa, 2023
Mara Oscar Cassiani, Spirit Avatar, filtro Instagram – mostra Art Layers on Artribune, 2021
Stop and Go. The Art of Animated Gifs, MGLC – International Centre for Graphic Art, Ljubljana, 2018
Unreel – A door to alternative realities, Rassegna di arte digitale nello spazio pubblico, The Gate – Bergamo, Brescia (aprile-giugno 2023)
Valentina Tanni, reality Quest, 2025 – The Lamp, Liminal Space, Roma
Valentina Tanni, The Great Wall of Memes – The Darknet. From Memes to Onionland, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, 2014
Valentina Tanni
Valentina Tanni
by

Martina Leva

March 5 · 26