UNIDEE – University of Ideas is a multifaceted platform offering an educational programme of residential modules - taking place both at Cittadellarte and at partners’ sites internationally - alongside a series of artists’ residency projects.
Based on interdisciplinary research, knowledge sharing and experience exchange, the programme fosters processes of cross-pollination to investigate the relationship between art and public sphere.
Since 2015, UNIDEE - University of Ideas at Cittadellarte has widened its activities launching a new educational programme, characterised by a dynamic, flexible structure of weekly residential modules, aiming to trigger and pave the way for a (re)localisation of participatory artistic practices in social contexts. The formative modules, delivered both at Cittadellarte as well as at international partners’ sites are developed parallel to established residency programmes: the Connective Residency and others in collaboration with institutional partners, e.g. Network RESÒ, A.M. Qattan Foundation, Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation.
Designed for artists, curators as well as students, social entrepreneurs and cultural project managers, the modules are open also to members of the broader public who are interested in delving into themes such as: social responsibility, urban transformation, participatory art practices, demopraxy, alternative models of local economic development, sustainability within fashion and construction industries, et cetera.
UNIDEE, beside its identity as a site for cultural production, sets out to become a research centre with at its core the relationship between art and public sphere, and to represent a reference point for the exchange of theoretical and practical knowledge between Cittadellarte and the global community of social agents active in their own local contexts.
UNIDEE - University of Ideas at Cittadellarte is characterized by the offer of specific seminar and laboratory modules held by international mentors, which also frame the artists’ residency programmes, thus suggesting a redefinition, from an educational point of view and within a process of thematic inquiry, of the traditional concept of artists’ residency, generally finalized to the production and exhibition of works of art realized in situ.
The UNIDEE - University of Ideas programme is focused on three key words each year. In a relationship of methodological continuity and semantic connection with the key words selected for 2015 (Temporality, Responsibility, Participation) and for those in 2016 (Research, Gift, Alteration), the 2017 course used an interdisciplinary approach to examine three more macro-themes - Revolution, Desire, Mediation - which are central to contemporary social-political debates as well as in the practices of many actors (artists, curators, public and private institutions, organisations, etc.) operating in the public sector.
Read the Statement 2017
Read the Statement 2016
Read the Statement 2015
The structure of UNIDEE - University of Ideas is articulated through three types of activities jointly developed by all Cittadellarte’s offices, especially Art, Fashion / B.E.S.T. and Nourishment / Let Eat Bi, Architecture / n.o.v.a.civitas - Nuovi Organismi di Vita Abitativa.
The three types of activities are:
- Weekly residential modules taking place at Cittadellarte and at partners' sites;
- Residency programmes for international artists at Cittadellarte;
- Connective Residency at Cittadellarte.
The UNIDEE - University of Ideas programme is made possible thanks to the support of Piedmont Region, Compagnia di San Paolo, Creative Europe programme of EU, Fondazione Zegna, illycaffé s.p.a.; the partnership for long residency of the RESÒ Network, A.M. Qattan Foundation (PA), Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation (IN), Fundación Museos de la Ciudad (EC), Yarat Contemporary Art Space (AZ); and the collaboration of a wide network of Academies, Universities and Italian institutions, as well as international institutions.
