Courtyard of Cittadellarte

Cittadellarte is a play on words which, depending on where you place your spaces, means either “art citadel” or “city of art.” Both descriptions are apt. On the one hand, Cittadellarte is its own utopian universe, a converted textile factory at the foothills of the Italian alps which today houses an ecologically sustainable art gallery, bookstore, annual artists residency, and an upscale bistro which touts itself as a purveyor of “glocal cuisine.” On the other hand, Cittadellarte is the base of a movement which aims to bring ‘art for social change’ to the masses. Or, as one of the many slogans written on the walls puts it, to place “art at the center of a responsible transformation of society.”

The vision for both the enclosed utopia and the neatly packaged artistic revolution it hopes to export belong to Michaelangelo Pistolleto, a well-known and well-connected Italian contemporary artist. He describes his worldview through his theory of the “third paradise”, a wordy and abstract way of saying that we should live and design within what nature already gives us rather than trying to conquer it. Eco-sustainability the kids call it these days.

Local companies around Biella donate what they would otherwise throw away to Cittadellarte so that it can be re-used by the artists in their projects.

Cittadellarte is divided up into eight “offices”. (Art, architecture, education, politics, manufacturing, ecology, communication, and nutrition.) Each “office” really refers to one or two individuals (who are most likely in some way related to Pistolleto) sitting at the same desk and thinking about how art can be applied to the everyday. They organize exhibitions on green architecture, advocate the Montessori method of education, sponsor workshops on ‘art and identity in Europe’, and help fund projects like the Unita Mobile, a bicycle library which aims to bring books to outlying neighborhoods in Turin and Rome.

Flavia from Portugal and Yael from Israel doing research on a project.

Every year, from late June to October, Cittadellarte also organizes and hosts an aritsts’ residency which brings 15 - 20 artists from around the world who have proposed projects that use art for social change. One of this year’s artists is Daniel Urrea, a friend from Medellín who helped train the HiperBarrio kids how to record and edit audio. Thanks to his invitation I was able to spend a few days at Cittadellarte getting to know the other artists and their projects.

As soon as I arrived to Biella - a small town whose affluence is still rooted in its previous incarnation as wool producing mecca - I was whisked away from the train station and taken to an “expertativo” organized by the artists in residence. An aperativo is essentially the Italian happy hour. After work you go to a bar and order a drink and they provide you with free hors d’oeuvres. The idea of the “expertativo” is that this time can be used to learn new ideas from new friends. The artists took over a popular bar in town and set up tables where they offered their “expertise” to the locals. I learned how to crochet, how to make toothpaste from scratch, and how to give hand massages. The delicious sangria and tasty snacks didn’t hurt either.

Cittadellarte with the bistro’s outside seating.

We frequently meet up for beers or coffee with our friends and tell them all the things we’d like to learn … if only we had more time. It is just as fun though to learn from our friends - and to teach them - while going out for drinks and coffee. I’m now looking for a friend who can teach me to make delicious sangria with white wine.

I find the idea of spending four months with nothing to do other than focus on a single art project irresistibly appealing. These days it is my job to try to attract more attention to the creative works of others, but I haven’t had much of a chance to focus on my own projects. There are short stories I would like to write, photography projects that would require months of shooting and post-processing, and short documentary films that would also require at least two or three months to produce.

The artists’ studio where the residents do their magic.

What is most appealing about the artists’ residency at Cittadellarte, however, is the amount of feedback and support each artists gets from his or her peers. They come from India, Palestine, Portugal, Ukraine, Spain, Colombia, Israel, Japan, Holland - all over - and yet they are constantly bouncing ideas off of one another to make their projects more creative and relevant.

Cristoph and Elisa trading notes.

On my final day I gave a presentation about Global Voices and Rising Voices. This residency was the first time that most of the artists have met anyone from, say, India or Palestine. Daniel from Colombia, for example, had never met anyone from India before. And, likewise, Nidhi from India had never met anyone from Colombia. How do we form our impressions of other countries when we have never visited them and have never met any of their citizens? The answer for most of us is still television - the images we see on the nightly news and in Hollywood’s portrayals. For example:

But as today’s generation watches less television and spends more time on the web, new opportunities open up. All of a sudden you can use Google Earth to zoom in on just about any corner of the world. And you can search through Global Voices to hear directly from the residents of just about any country in the world. But unlike the nightly news which brings images of the world directly to us, the internet requires that we actively seek out information about the rest of the world. How to encourage that is the million dollar question.