Open call & program

Fabrica is a renaissance-inspired, learning-by-doing research centre, located 30 km from Venice, Italy, in a 17th century villa renovated by Japanese architect Tadao Ando.

Every semester, around 20 creative talents—25 year-old or under—are selected from all over the world to speculate and experiment on a specific theme, through a constant contamination between disciplines such as photography, design, film, writing, music/sound, fine arts and digital media.

With a legacy of fostering social change through a cross-cultural approach, Fabrica provides an intensive program that includes lectures, workshops, seminars, concerts, and the development of a personal research project leading to a final live exhibition at the end of the semester.

The current semester program, focused on Archaism, is directed by artist, filmmaker and former Fabrica resident Carlos Casas.

The artists-in-residence will be asked to project themselves backwards to look ahead, focusing their research on contemporary practices that investigate ancestral knowledge, embrace vernacular ways and advocate for an essential connection to nature, through both material simplicity and a challenging attitude towards technology.

The semester will feature an intense program of lectures, workshops, screenings and seminars held by globally renowned contemporary artists, researchers and curators. The program has started with a commencement talk by anthropologist Tim Ingold and a workshop by Enrico Malatesta/Attila Faravelli and will continue with workshops and lectures by Rie Nakajima, Batia Suter, Haroon Mirza, Dora Budor, Nina Canell, Alberonero, Mårten Spångberg, Kensuke Koike, Brynjar Sigurðarson, Borut Peterlin, Nicol Vizioli, Carl Stone, Elena Biserna and mentors Filipa Ramos, Luca Trevisani and Vanessa De Michelis.

For more information on the semester program please visit fabrica.it.

Over almost thirty years of history, Fabrica has welcomed over 800 young creative talents from all over the world, as well as thinkers and luminaries that have been contributing to shape the present that we live in and envision the future that might await us. Some of them are Marina Abramović, Bruce Sterling, Sebastião Salgado, Maira Kalman, Al Gore, Timothy Morton, Peter Gabriel, Abbas Kiarostami, Martin Parr, Duane Michals, Jonathan Barnbrook, Michael Nyman, Lawrence Weiner, Ferran Adria, John Thackara, Boris Mikhailov, Andres Serrano, Alan Fletcher, Massimo Vignelli, Alexander Bălănescu, Mike Mills, Mario Botta, William Klein, Issey Miyake, Ed Fella, David Carson, Godfrey Reggio, Lewis Baltz, Philippe Starck, Marti Guixe, Wim Crouwel, Stefan Sagmeister, Francesco Bonami, Franco Battiato, Golan Levin, Stephen Gill, Lucy Orta, Casey Reas, Richard Billingham, Heiner Goebbels, Amy Franceschini/Futurefarmers, Daito Manabe, James Bridle, Martino Gamper, Roberto Saviano, Alejandro Aravena, Bertjan Pot, Romeo Castellucci, John Cale, Tarek Atoui, Erik Kessels, Antoni Abad, Joseph Kosuth, Jurgen Bey, Peter Saville, Olaf Nicolai, Philippe Rahm.

The selected artists-in-residence for this semester (Archaism March–July 2023) are: Aashna Arora, India; Aitana Ahrens, Spain; Alice Nascimben, Italy; Alex Darbyshire, Australia; Alexander Gabriel Albanese, Italy; Borja Rodriguez, Spain; Camille Rieu Camilleri, France; Charlotte Van Alfen, The Netherlands; Ellen Owens, Ireland; Erik Alfredo Martinez, Dominican Republic; Jay Watson, USA; Lucas Variz, Brazil; Lucca Reis, Brazil; Mina Lee, South Korea; Piotr Mikhaylov, France, Leo Koda, Japan; Ram Harikrishnan, India; Thales Prediger, Brazil.

The themes chosen for the next semesters are: Co-Ecologies (September 2023–February 2024), Kinship (March–July 2024). Applications for the March–July 2024 program are open until April 30, 2023. Apply here.

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