UNIDEE2007 is over!

UNIDEE in PROGRESS – the press release

UNIDEE – University of Ideas and Cittadellarte- Fondazione Pistoletto
presents

Saturday 27 October 2007 – at 17.00 (free entrance)

UNIDEE IN PROGRESS 2007

The four month residency at Cittadellarte from July to October facilitates the exploration of the relationship between art and society. It promotes investigation into the methods of creative intervention and assists in realizing projects influencing responsible transformation in society.
Saturday 27 October 2007, starting at 5:00 pm., the studio of UNIDEE – University of Ideas opens to the public. The residents will present to visitors their ongoing projects and the culmination of their time at the foundation.
Since July 4th, 17 artists and researchers from all over the world have shared space, ideas, knowledge, and projects working along side the local context in their development. The experience for the residents was informed by the encounters between diverse fields from architecture to economy, visual art to music, and literature to design. In the development of group or individual projects the residents engaged a number of social issues and creative solutions. Coming from all over the world they have shared ideas, knowledge, and projects while at the same time working in the local context to develop their artistic practice.
During the months of UNIDEE, the residents had the opportunity to draw inspiration from a program of meetings focused on methodologies of intervention. The heads of the various offices of Cittadellarte which are made up of experts in economy, communication, and business led workshops and communal discussions all under the artistic direction of Michelangelo Pistoletto.

UNIDEE In progress – Program

17.00: Opening Hosted by the residents of UNIDEE
19.30: Beyond Arepa, a buffet in collaboration with the Cafeteria glocal restaurant of Cittadellarte. Polenta is transformed to Colombian bread, arepa, from Medellin to Cittadellarte (in collaboration with Juan Pablo Jimenez Carvajal with the participation of Gayle Chong Kwan)
21,30 – Auditorium: Concert SURREALISTIC LIZARDS, a project to promote music free from copyright curated by Andres Torca and the Restaurant of Cittadellarte, with the collaboration of Se.Li.Li, (Free Licence Service), a project by the Polytechnical University of Turin and Region of Piedmont to provide information in the area of ‘Free Licensing’

The Residents of UNIDEE 2007

Rei Dishon – Israel/ Wafaa Yasin – Palestine/ Chelsea Knight – United States / Ika Peraic – Croatia / Juan Pablo Jimenez Carvajal – Colombia / Marthe Van Dessel – Belgium/ Lieven Paelinck – Belgium / Nerita Oeiras – Brasil / Francesca Montà – Italy / Sakshi Guptà – India / Zofia Wollny – Poland / Vicentiu Gârbacea – Romania / Natalia Pershina – Russia / Andres Torca – Spain / Jason Waite – United States/ Fiona Whitty – Ireland / Rotimi Babatunde – Nigeria.

Their participation in UNIDEE in Residence is possible due to the grants provided by: Ermenegildo Zegna Foundation, University of Antioquia, UniCredit Group, Snait Foundation, Qattan Foundation, Inlaks, Hangar, Pacefuturo Association, Illy, IFPC-UNESCO, Fulbright, DeBuren and the Provence of Biella.

Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto – via Serralunga 27 – 13900 Biella (Italia) – tel.: +39 015 28400; fax: +39 015/2522540 – Website: www.cittadellarte.it – e-mail: unidee@cittadellarte.it (Director: Cristiana Bottigella) – Press Office: ufficiostampa@cittadellarte.it ; tel.: +39 015 0991454(Francesca Fossati).

photo diary: visit to Serralunga company

Serralunga is a company in Biella with a 170 years long tradition, nowadays leader in the production of Italian Style plastic flower pot.
The industrial concept is to “revisit” the traditional flower pot with the choice of new materials and with a costant creative reserach, which lead to the production of pottery, lamps and furniture realized by famous designers. Serralunga exports its product in 52 different countries all over the world.

Marco Serralunga, head of Serralunga company

Marco Serralunga takes UNIDEE resident in a tour of the factory in Biella

The big plastic pots of Serralunga, ready to be distributed

A sight of Serralunga’s machinery

Colors in Serralunga

Photo diary: deBuren meeting

Together the Flemish and Dutch government have taken the initiative to establish the Vlaams-Nederlands Huis as a cultural institution and as a centre for debate and reflection. The mission of the Huis is to provide a Dutch-Flemish forum for debate on cultural diversity, society and politics in Europe.
The Huis is a logical continuation of a close association between Flanders and the Netherlands over a period of decades. In 1980 both governments decided to set this language co-operation down in the Dutch Language Union Treaty. Fifteen years later they signed a broader cultural treaty which resulted in the Flanders-Netherlands Cultural Treaty. Now that the European Union is becoming increasingly important, they have chosen Brussels as the site for Flanders and the Netherlands to present themselves as a single region linked by language and culture within the cultural diversity of Europe.
In view of the social importance of this cultural diversity, it is important for European countries to inform one another about their culture and for these cultures to meet. The main task of the Huis is to provide a platform for debate on Europe and for different target groups to come together, to provide European citizens with information in presentations and talks and, finally, to distribute information (digitally or otherwise). The Huis hopes by means of its activities to focus on intermediary target groups as well as on the public at large.

In Cittadellarte, deBuren director Dorian van der Brempt and exhibitions and programming manager Klaartje Brouns explained origin and mission of the centre and illustrated deBuren 2007 program.

The cover of 2007 deBuren brochure

A moment of the meeting with UNIDEE residents

Dorian van der Brempt, deBuren director

Klaartje Brouns, deBuren exhibitions and programming manager

photo diary: ILO students visit UNIDEE residents

UNIDEE rsidents received the visit of the students of the Master “Cultural Projects for Developement”, which takes place into the International Training Centre of the ILO in Turin.
The Centre works to enhance the capacity of governments, employers’ organizations, workers’ organizations and other social and economic actors to play an effective role in the economic and social development of their countries and regions.
Professor Walter Santagata, Director of the Master “Cultural Projects for Development”, came with the students and took a brief common lecture around Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Mediterranean Table.

Professor Santagata and the students of the Master “Cultural Projects for Development” meet UNIDEE residents in Cittadellarte

A moment of the meeting around the Mediterranean Table

Professor Walter Santagata

Students of the master “Cultural Projects for Development” visited Cittadellarte’s exhibitions

Love Difference

Love Difference – Artistic Movement for an InterMediterranean Politic was established in Biella in Spring 2002 in the Politics Office of the Cittadellarte–Fondazione Pistoletto. The aim is to bring together, around the regions facing onto the Mediterranean Sea, people and institutions interested in creating new prospects that reach beyond the tragic conflict between different cultures.

Love Difference logo

The name of the movement, Love Difference, encapsulates a concept which goes beyond a rational notion of ‘tolerance’ for what is diverse and penetrates directly into the sphere of feelings: love means feeling attraction and emotion, expressing affection and dedication. The first thing to accept, in an open, sensitive and warm fashion, are the differences between people and social groups, in order to finally give meaning to the word ‘humanity’ in this increasingly globalized world.
Love Difference seeks to activate a movement of thought and action that leads, through creative engagement, to the formation of a network of connections with and between the different countries of the Mediterranean area. The movement intends to use this network to lay the foundations for a Mediterranean Cultural Parliament. To change the current dramatic situation it is necessary to identify people and bodies throughout the Mediterranean area with whom it will be possible to work towards ‘responsible social transformation’.

UNIDEE residents around the Mediterranean Table (Michelangelo Pistoletto, 2003) symbol of Love Difference

Filippo Fabbrica, coordinator of Love Difference, in dialogue with residents about aims, activity and projects of the Artistic Movement for an InterMediterranean Politic

Photo diary: the big game of Economics

UNIDEE residents met Francesco Bernabei, head of Cittadellarte’s Organic Economics Office. The meeting soon turned into a collective game, based on the rules of the economic systems, focused on the exploration of new, sustainable alternatives to the existing ones.
People around the table transformed into a “micro-society”, which had to confront itself with the challenges of economics.
The debate which followed the game session encouraged a reflection on the positive role that creativity can have in the developement of new, socially responsible economic strategies.

Francesco Bernabei, head of Cittadellarte Organic Economics Office

The “micro-society” at work: electing a governement and figuring out the main issues to manage

Houses prices are not affordable for the popoulation: “favelas” are born

A moment of the debate

Andres and Fiona during the debate session

Every product assumes Social Responsability

A photo diary of the meeting between Cittadellarte’s Production Office and UNIDEE Residents

Armona Pistoletto, head of Cittadellarte Production Office

Francesca Minero Re, Cittadellarte Production Office
(picture courtesy of Rei)

Jason and Zorka
(picture courtesy of Rei)

Wafaa with one of the Illy Collection coffe cups
(picture courtesy of Rei)

Mirroring myself – a contribution by Vicentiu

Starting from Michelangelo Pistoletto’s mirrors, Vicentiu exposes his impressions and thoughts after the experiences of the very first days of residence.

Photo and text courtesy of Vicentiu Garbacea
Browse Vicentiu’s personal blog

“Hit reset, reset, time and time again”

Biffy Clyro – Convex, Concave/Blackening Sky (2002)

 

The man responsible for the UNIDEE thing is the Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto world renowned in the art world for his trademark mirror installations which mix painting, photography and sculpture in a compelling manner. The concept of the mirror is somehow central for what happened to me in relation with UNIDEE in Residence program and Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto. From the very first moment when I took the courage to apply for this residency without being an artist or having an ‘artistic’ background everything was in a way or another a process of retrieving and observing myself. Once while in Biella I took this photo reflecting myself into a fashion clothing vitrine. And the next morning I was listening and conversing with Michelangelo Pistoletto who was explaining us, to the UNIDEE residents, the concept of mirror in his work. Jacques Lacan re-built psychoanalysis by re-defining some of its central issues. The problem of viewing oneself in a mirror is a central point in the development of one’s personality and libidinal instincts. Pistoletto stressed in the presentation that as mirrors and observers of the world people cannot see themselves. Unless and until they meet another mirror. That means meeting the other, or the hell as Sartre would put it. In a mass society people are always keen on avoiding responsibility by placing themselves within a system that protects and keeps them within certain limits. Few of them take responsibility in assuming the existential demands of the very fact of living. I had the chance in the very first days spent in Cittadellarte to meet people coming from so different parts of the world. At every meal and in every moment of the day I had conversations, from funny and casual to pretty deep and serious ones about art, social involvement, responsibility and the meaning of life in diverse ways. Every of these moments put me in the situation to re-define myself, to re-actualize my thought and my feelings.

What is art? This question was raised when we first met officially Mr. Pistoletto at the round table. His answer came naturally: “art always has to be re-defined”. So I reckon that the central experience is the one of re-actualizing, re-defining and re-constructing. Art, thoughts, science, politics, personality. I personally do not believe. I can think, but I do not believe in any constructed system. Be it religious, political, social and so forth. If there is any idea I have about the man who lives at the beginning of the third millennium of so-called civilized world is that he has to re-define and re-invent the everything for himself. Lyotard was writing three decades ago about the decay of grand narratives and the rise of informational societies and cultures. What about now? In a world where a child dies almost every second because of poverty or war while the richest people in the world get even richer? Where can we find a stable point? What to look for? God, technology, economics, politic or social power or art-world recognition? Is capitalism good or bad? Is communism good or bad? Is the Internet good or bad? These are narrowing questions. Still problems in societies and cultures around the globe are put this way. I do not have an answer for them. I can only look for answer for myself. If I am anything I am a peaceful person who believes only in the power of every man and woman around the globe to find answers for hers/his own questions. Not to expect solutions from others. And not to try to tell others what is good for them.

Mirroring myself is the name that I gave to the photo with my reflection in the vitrine of the fashion clothing store. Mirroring myself is the process I am going trough. Within it I am always in a relationship with the mirrors I meet during my existence. The others. I will use my time while living this experience to create personal answers for my issues. If they would positively affect anyone means that I am not living an egoistic life. And there’s nothing wrong with this.

Talking about communications with Pier Luigi Celli

On Wednesday, July 11th, Professor Pier Luigi Celli has been in Cittadellarte, scheduled in UNIDEE meeting program.
Professor Celli held with UNIDEE artists a rich and interesting discussion about communications and their role in entrprises and society.
“To communicate – said Celli – means to have a story to tell. Stories can’t be invented, we must enter the story and animate its carachters and features.”
“Good-working enterprises – continued Celli – have a strong identity. This means to be focused on differences: communications are a poweful tool of mutual aknowledgements”.
Through arts – said Celli – organisations, as banks, can communicate an attention towards world which is impossible to transmit by words”.

The audio of the entire meeting with Professor Celli is available here (.mp3, 64MB, 2h circa)

UNIDEE residents meet Pier Luigi Celli in Cittadellarte’s music room

Professor Celli reminisces his experiences in communications while discussing with the residents