UNIDEE – University of Ideas
Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto Onlus
Via G. B. Serralunga 27
13900 Biella
Italy
www.cittadellarte.it/unidee
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To apply, and for application deadlines: see specific modules
UNIDEE – University of Ideas launched in 2015 within the unique and special context of Cittadellarte – Pistoletto Foundation in Biella. Having inherited a long experience of residencies for international artists (2000–13), the experimental educational prototype or model combines theory with practice.
UNIDEE – University of Ideas offers an educational programme based on a weekly research and project laboratory under the guidance of a mentor who is an expert in the theme of that specific module; as well as the active participation of a guest with the objective of examining the topics in their complexity and many facets, trying to maintain a balance of the thought forms (theories) and free or unforeseeable situations (creative processes).
Through its residential dynamics, UNIDEE is designed to form artivators, people who intend to use art as a methodology, practice and language, becoming agents for the activation of responsible actions and processes to be carried out in the territories in which they live and their professional activities.
Encouraged by the high number of participants (111 presences from 16 different countries) and their enthusiastic feedback and proposals for future developments to 2015’s experimental model, the intention for 2016 is to continue to analyse and thus fine-tune this educational method through the close examination of three other macro-topics: research, gift and alteration. With an interdisciplinary approach and in accordance with the trinamic principle of Michelangelo Pistoletto, the three semantic areas are considered in their inter-relationships as sites for generating forms of resistance, new possibilities in meaning, and social transformation.
The mentors and guests for 2016 are (in order of appearance):
Expodium (Nikos Doulos and Bart Witte); Jason Waite with Adelita Husni-Bey; Lara Almarcegui with Marco Giardino; Cesare Pietroiusti with Aldo Spinelli; Martino Gamper with Visible (Matteo Lucchetti and Judith Wielander); Giusy Checola with L’Italia cheCambia and Transition Town Biella; Maddalena Marciano with Claudia Losi and in collaboration with Fashion Office of Cittadellarte/ B.E.S.T; Attila Faravelli and Enrico Malatesta with Nicola Ratti; Luigi Coppola with Daniel Blanga Gubbay; Antoni Muntadas with Alessandra Messali; Adrian Paci with Edi Muka and Tea Çuni; Aria Spinelli with Núria Güell; STEALTH.unlimited (Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen) with Erik Jutten and Piet Vollaard; Daria Filardo with Olafur Eliasson in conversation with Michelangelo Pistoletto.
Among the weekly residencies, 2016 UNIDEE programme will open to two new experimental modules lasting two weeks in collaboration with STEALTH.unlimited (second week taking place @ Stoking House at City in the Making in Rotterdam) and with Adrian Paci (second week taking place @ Art House in Shkodër, Albania). The desire to expand the two laboratories in space and time come from the singularity of the proposed contexts, able to offer new pathways of sense and content to the collective discussions begun in Cittadellarte, and thus offer a more articulate critical analysis of the macro-themes being studied.
In 2016, the historic support of the Fondazione Zegna in the development of the UNIDEE programme will be consolidated through the co-project of a laboratory and research module conducted by Martino Gamper.
The originality of the UNIDEE programme to invent new residential formats lies in its collaborations with Universities and Fine Arts Academies (students gain ECTS credits upon a negotiated agreement), and in its development and achievement of the two projects co-financed by the European Union: Ottomans and Europeans and Understanding Territoriality: Identity, Place & Possession – TIPP. How the long-production residency remains aimed at international artists will be determined by collaborations with institutional partners: Illycaffé s.p.a., Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, Qattan A. M. Foundation, the RESÓ network, without forgetting the Unfunded Residency and the Connective Residency.
For further informations and applications please visit the UNIDEE – University of Ideas website or contact [email protected]
Programme Director and Curator: Cecilia Guida
Programme Coordinator: Roberta Bernasconi
Assistant Director and Curator: Giulia Crisci
Programme developed by Cecilia Guida for UNIDEE and Educational Office of Cittadellarte, in collaboration with Juan Esteban Sandoval (Art Office), under the supervision of Paolo Naldini.
