WHAT’S ART FOR?
CURATED AND COORDINATED BY
Elena Ciresola
PROMOTED BY
Accademia di Belle Arti di Verona, Il Giornale dell’Arte, ArtVerona
STUDENTS
Campregher Valentina, Gabos Giulia, Marigo Elisa, Panisi Naomi, Riolfi Camilla, Santambrogio Valentina
October 2016 - October 2017
A three-year course of action-research structured in a program of lectures and workshops and a cognitive research program carried out by the students of the Atelier Direction two-year course in Cultural Mediation of Art to understand in a peer environment the value that young people attribute to the artistic experience for their profession and their existence.
The project started with the opening talk of ArtVerona 2016, What’s art for? A cosa serve l’arte? Serve ancora? with the participation of Catterina Seia, Vice President Fitzcarraldo and Anna Somers Cocks, Director of The Art Newspaper, during which the Atelier Direction two-year program in Cultural Mediation of Art accepted the proposal to develop a peer to peer research project on the topics discussed in the talk.
The first phase of the research, in 2017, was conducted during two semesters by two groups of students of the 1st and 2nd year of the two-year program, who designed and delivered a questionnaire administered to about 200 students of the humanities faculties of the University of Verona, not directly related to Art. The research path was accompanied by a series of thematic seminars with experts on audience engagement, on the relationship with businesses and communities. The average age of the interviewees was 23. The questionnaire encompassed a broad spectrum of the interests and passions of young people, bringing out, among the many elements, a result which must be investigated further, which was a surprise for those who administered the surveys, but not for the young people of the Academy who know their peers and intend to share the relevant finding with the Art system.
Art and museums, are not among the leisure interests of young people who have chosen humanities faculties, which is the target that should be more receptive than any other to cultivating Culture: the interests of the surveyed population range from 46% in sports, 41% in music, 33% in literature. Only 0.5% mention museums: a marginal percentage. Art, especially contemporary art, arouses little interest, in a country where one sixth of the population does not participate in any cultural activity, according to ISTAT. These are facts that make us reflect.
The results of the survey were presented, together with discussions on artistic languages, during the opening talk of ArtVerona 2017, with speeches by the following:
Massimiliano Valdinoci, Director of the Academy of Fine Arts of Verona;
Elena Ciresola, curator and coordinator of the project;
Alessandra Gariboldi, research area coordinator - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo;
Campregher Valentina, Gabos Giulia, Marigo Elisa, Panisi Naomi, Riolfi Camilla, Santambrogio Valentina, and the students of the two-year program in Atelier Direction - Cultural Mediation of Art who participated in the project.
At the same time, a series of lectures were held with some young entrepreneurs:
in October, during ArtVerona, with Fabio Viola, one of the most authoritative figures in the gamification industry on an international level, author of the first museum video game – Father and Son, created for the MANN in Naples – which has reached over 1.2 million downloads.
It was an opening of perspectives on new worlds that intersect with the relationship with the public and their active participation, with a new narrative about heritage.
At the end of November, there was a talk with Matteo Ward, another young entrepreneur in ethical fashion. Business can and must be social. Creativity can lead us to conceive a new society.