Open call for UNIDEE 2018

UNIDEE welcomes your application to participate in one or more of its three modules for the 2018 fall term.

Launched by Michelangelo Pistoletto in 1999, UNIDEE – University of Ideas is the higher educational programme for art and social change of Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto (Italy). Based on interdisciplinary research, knowledge sharing and field activities, the programme fosters processes of cross-pollination to investigate the relationship between art and public sphere. Organized around intensive weekly modules, the programme is open to artists and other practitioners from all over the world to develop formal, theoretical and critical skills and provides enrolled fellows with feedback and resources to facilitate and support their practices. Each module is moderated by a visiting mentor with the support of a guest and is specifically designed to train “artivators,” people who intend to use art as a methodology, practice and language advancing the notion of art as a public sphere and political action.

For its 2018–19 seasons, UNIDEE is happy to welcome Valerio Del Baglivo as Visiting Curator. His work has frequently focused on collaborative research, alternative education and fiction as a method for social critique. At Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto he will be working implementing the activities to celebrate the 20th anniversary of UNIDEE.

Since 1999 the programme has registered the participation of more than 480 students from 52 different countries. Previous mentors were Assemble, Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabi, Franco “Bifo” Berardi, Viviana Checchia, Etcetera, Iliana Fokianaki, Germano Celant, Rick Lowe, Matteo Lucchetti, Viktor Misiano, Antoni Muntadas, Adrian Paci, STEALTH.unlimited, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Jason Waite among others.

Moreover, beside the modules, UNIDEE promotes an International Residency Programme in collaboration with art organizations based in non-western countries. 2018 selected residents are: Daniela Delgado Viteri (Fundación Museos de la Ciudad, Ecuador), Leyli Gafarova (Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Azerbaijan), Manjot Kaur (Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, India), Shayma Albess (A.M. Qattan Foundation, Palestine).

Modules description
UNIDEE 2018 fall term is dedicated to promote and support the practice of three renewed female artists. With different background, artists and curators Amy Franceschini (Futurefarmers), Katarina Zdjelar, Alessandra Saviotti & Gemma Medina Estupiñan (Arte Útil) and their collaborators, will bring into discussion feminism perspectives, agrarian practices, social engagements, peer to peer learning approaches, discussing themes such as integrity, critique of normative standards, sustainability and social change.

October 29–November 1
Amy Franceschini + Lode Vranken of Futurefarmers
with guest Livia Cahn
Pattern, integrity

November 19–November 23
Katarina Zdjelar
with guests Jelena Vesić and Federica Bueti
With regard to the perception of detail

December 3–7
Arte Útil (Alessandra Saviotti & Gemma Medina Estupiñan)
Broadcasting the archive #10

Location
Instituted in 1998 by artist Michelangelo Pistoletto as a concrete development of his Progetto Arte Manifesto—a direct call to artists to initiate social changes in their own contexts—Cittadellarte aims at inspiring and producing responsible changes in society through ideas and creative projects. Pistoletto has translated the Foundation mission into the symbol of the Third Paradise: in his words “a reconfiguration of the mathematical infinity sign, made of three consecutive circles. The two external circles represent all the diversities and antinomies, among which nature and artifice. The central one is given by the compenetration of the opposite circles and represents the generative womb of a new humanity”.

Since then Cittadellarte has built a network of autonomous and connected “ambassadors of the Third Paradise,” a group of agents that represent initiatives of social and political transformation worldwide. These ambassadors follow the practices of demopraxia a methodology leading the whole society to participate concretely in the exercise of the government.

Application procedure
Applicants must submit their application by email to: unidee [​at​] cittadellarte.it stating “UNIDEE 2018 application (your name)” as a subject line.
Applicants must attach the following documents (up to 8 MB in total):
(1) the application form (download here)
(2) a portrait photo of you (JPG format, max 2 Mb)
(3) a selected portfolio (max 3 projects, one single pdf, max 6 Mb)

Partners
UNIDEE patrons are Piedmont Region, Compagnia di San Paolo, CRT Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino, Fondazione Zegna, illycaffè S.p.A.

UNIDEE AIR partners are A.M. Qattan Foundation (PS); Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation (IN); Fundación Museos de la Ciudad (EC); Yarat Contemporary Art Space (AZ).

For further informations, please visit UNIDEE – University of Ideas website or contact: unidee [​at​] cittadellarte.it.