When fashion becomes an example of excellence and sustainability, an interview with the co-founder of WRÅD Matteo Ward Face to face with the CEO of the startup which has become an international best practice: Matteo Ward talks about the role of communication in the process of raising social awareness on the theme of ethical fashion, highlighting the inspirational and collaborative relationship linking WRÅD to Cittadellarte and identifying the objectives his brand pursues in the field of global sustainability. “The fashion industry,” he said, “cannot be allowed to legitimately consume essential resources for life on Earth anymore”. BY Luca Deias IL 18/02/2021 Leggi di più
“100 Panchine per Roma”, when a place to sit becomes a symbol of community and sustainability The capital has launched a participatory, socially useful, low-environmental-impact project which sees a hundred benches made of recycled plastic being installed in different areas of Rome. Here is how to adopt and personalise one of them, or to contribute in a shared manner. BY Redazione IL 02/02/2021 Leggi di più
Embedded arts practices in a post-pandemic future, UNIDEE 2020 in ten weeks of residency The protagonists of last year’s UNIDEE programme were forty-six, coming from all over the world. The educational experience, structured in a blended physical and virtual format, led the residents to investigate and propose their own researches on the role of socially engaged practices in times of Covid-19, with the contributions of professionals, curators and art organizers and theorists. “The residency generated new ideas,” said Juan Sandoval, director of UNIDEE residency programs, “responding to the conditions of a changing world". BY Luca Deias IL 25/01/2021 Leggi di più
Participation and its (dis)contents. How can art contribute to collective deliberation processes and participation in civic governance Paolo Naldini, the director of Cittadellarte, presents a series of artistic initiatives focusing on effectiveness of impact, deeply rooted in their contexts and aware of human rights, thus proving that there exist socially engaged practices that have been dealing with participation and its discontents. “There may be hundreds of other inspiring projects,” says Naldini, “that could lead us to see, or at least to sense, that involving artists initiatives in collective deliberation processes is not only viable but also desirable. I hope these will serve as a shared knowledge basis for tackling more specifically the question of the possible relation between art and collective deliberation processes and participation in civic governance". BY Paolo Naldini IL 20/01/2021 Leggi di più
Deautomatisation and good infection for a pandemopraxy Paolo Naldini, director of Cittadellarte, intends to argue that the proposal of demopraxy and the method of social design that refers to it can offer adequate tools for dealing with the urgent challenges that our societies are called to respond to. The contribution focuses on four skills in particular (creativity, dialogue, research, civic engagement), taken as key devices to proceed along the path of deautomatisation. The argument develops into how to reduce the intensity of the automaton condition. In fact, it is assumed that the path traced by these four abilities opens up to the exercise of authorship. And that the latter form the basis of any conscious and responsible practice. The central thesis of the text is that demopraxy occurs when the organisations that make up the social fabric (community of practice) exercise conscious and responsible, therefore deautomatised, practices within their fields of action and along the supply chains and networks of which they are part. The thesis is supported by analysing the functioning of creativity-dialogue-research-civic engagement as counterweights to the corresponding and opposite psychic and social dynamics. Invoking the metaphor of the virus and the pandemic, the text proposes the good infection of demopraxy through these four abilities as an antidote to the failure in the fulfilment of the democratic promise. And it invites everybody to participate in a research laboratory of artistic practice, cultural studies, political science and active intervention with the actual experimentation of devices for social design based on participatory practices of civic engagement. BY Paolo Naldini IL 06/01/2021 Leggi di più
The Art of Balance #84 | Fortunato D’Amico, what will you engage in? The curator and Cittadellarte’s collaborator is the 84th participant in the initiative “The Art of Balance / Pandemopraxy”, launched by Cittadellarte. Fortunato D’Amico draws a parallel between Pistoletto’s sign-symbol and the biblical episode of Adam and Eve: “The responsibility to fill the void between the present and an imagined future belongs to the philosophical and scientific theories, as well as to the research on the sense of divine”. This episode’s guest details how he intends to contribute to building the time to come virtuously, that is adopting the principles of the trinamic symbol and the 17 goals stated in the UN’s 2030 Agenda. BY Redazione IL 16/12/2020 Leggi di più
The Art of Balance #83 | Silvia Filippi and Bruno di Loreto, what decision will you take? The Rebirth/Third Paradise ambassadress and the communicator in the field of culture of ecophilosophy are the 83rd participants in the initiative “The Art of Balance / Pandemopraxy”, launched by Cittadellarte. Their contribution starts by highlighting how the pandemic has emphasised the individualism and the loneliness of the contemporary man, to then focus on a pact Silvia has sealed with ‘mother nature’, i.e. “making an act of commitment with which to drive a cultural, social and economic re-evolution to carry out with creativity and imagination, colours and materials, for a future that re-establishes the broken connection between nature and us, according to a sense of circularity and reciprocity”. This episode’s guests then reflect on the impact Covid-19 has had on society and propose an articulated thought contemplating art and creativity, ecosystem and sustainability, culture and health. BY Redazione IL 10/12/2020 Leggi di più
The Art of Balance #79| Neil Powell, how will you communicate? The artist and curator is the 79th participant in the initiative “The Art of Balance / Pandemopraxy”, launched by Cittadellarte. Neil Powell reflects on the role of technology in the present and in the future, emphasising that “try as we do for meaning and humanity through the medium of internet and OLED, there is little doubt in most minds that deep down we all really know that this is a sterile proxy for human interaction”. This episode’s guest then talks about the impact of the pandemic on modern society: “My earnest wish is that the firebreak of Covid will not denude us of this possibility, either by creating new phobias around intimacy or that we lose the vital part of our humanity, that is to read a person’s communication in a holistic way”. BY Redazione IL 02/12/2020 Leggi di più
