Art Aia - Creatives / In / Residence is an international art residency located near the comune of Sesto al Reghena in the north-eastern Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia. It's a place for artistic production and research that focuses on the development of the creative process and facilitates cultural exchange across borders.
Art Aia – Creatives is glad to promote Arte Laguna Prize, an international art competition open to multiple disciplines – visual, performing, multimedia, landscape and digital arts – for the enhancement of contemporary art and the mapping of its current state. It was created in 2006 to give the opportunity to art talents, more or less young, to emerge, to be noticed by the general public and by the jury composed of important names in the contemporary art scene, as well as to allow a democratic comparison between international artists .
The virtuous circle of Foundations, Museums, Galleries, Residences and Spaces for Art, Made in Italy Companies and International Brands, allows the realization of special projects and concrete opportunities for growth and momentum for the professional career of artists.
Since 2022 our founder Giovanni Morassutti, is among the ambassadors of the Arte Laguna Prize, disseminating opportunities for artists at an international level.
Applications to Special Prizes to collaborate with the international partners are still open until December 22.
Art Aia – Creatives In Residence’ founder Giovanni Morassuttihas been invited by the TransCultural Exchange to speak at the Conference on International Opportunities in the Arts which will take place in Boston Massachusetts on November 2022.
Giovanni Morassutti during Climate Change Theatre Action in 2021.
Morassutti will focus on environmental, and sustainable art practices providing artists direct access to understanding Climate Change via artist in residence programme. The afternoon session will take place on Sunday November 6th from 2:15 – 4:00 pm and it will be moderated by Jane D. Marsching, Arts, Professor and Sustainability Fellow, Massachusetts College of Art and Design Other presentes include Julian Calleros, Founder, ACRAR, Anima Casa Rural Artists in Residency, Mexico, Janeil Engelstad, Founding Director, Make Art with Purpose; Embedded Artist, Institute of Innovation and Global Engagement, University of Washington, Gordon Knox, Founder, WEAVE: Ecology-based International Learning Spaces, and Ute Meta Bauer, International Curator; Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University; and Founding Director of the NTU CCA Singapore.
Iika Hartikainen rehearsing Soulmarket in the Art Aia Rehearsal Space
Art Aia – Creatives In Residence is pleased to welcome the art project Soul Market by Iika Hartikainen and Sinikka Lumiluoto.
Performances of the project First edition of Soul Market was inspired by the global economy, its theories and effects on everyone’s lives.
For the performance the artists studied their own habits of consuming and were living in a shared and circular economy. Performance about consumerism in the form of an economic conference took place in an amphi theatre in Espoo, Finland, June 2021.
Iika Hartikainen and Sinikka Lumiluoto are a duo of professionals in clowning and physical theatre based in Helsinki, Finland who have met met in a clown course organized by 2015 Theatre Metamorfoosi and directed by Giovanni Fusetti which led to MetaCLOWNS solo nights in 2016 in Helsinki. The MetaClowns project focused on solo and themed work. They were also interested in applying clowning in semi-public spaces together with another art form. With the support of the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation Iika and Sinikka created the Expert Touring performance concept in 2019 at the Kerava Art and Museum Center and made different versions in several other art museums in Finland.
Video still from “дети II” / “Deti II”. Multimedia installation with video component, by Mary Bluestocking, March 19th, 2022. Italy.
Mary Bluestocking is a Latvian-American contemporary artist who is currently producing multi- media work focused on the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
Bluestocking’s first major work as part of her For Ukraine project, is the large-scale installation “дети II” / “Deti II” (Russian for “Children II”), which is a recreation of the writing on the ground at theater/shelter in Mariupol, Ukraine which was shelled by the Russians on March 16th. Even now, hundreds are believed to still be trapped. The “Deti II” installation by Bluestocking included a drone video recording. A short-version of the video was posted on social media and is meant to serve, currently, as a vigil to the victims of Russia’s attack on the theater. The Deti series is ultimately meant as a narrative body, in direct opposition to the Russian administration’s own narrative of being “rescuers” of the Ukrainian people from “genocidal fascists”. The series pinpoints and emphasizes the critical detail of the Mariupol theater scene which makes it plain to see that Putin and his administration are guilty of war crimes. The series seeks to raise awareness among those confused by the mixed messaging, censorship and disinformation in the media and it calls for acknowledgement that Putin and his administration are guilty of war crimes. “Dety II” was conceived, and executed at Art Aia – Creatives In Residence – an art center in the Comune of Sesto al Reghena in the North-Eastern Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy, where Bluestocking is currently doing an art residency until March 27th. Since the publication of “Dety II” on instagram, Facebook and Youtube on March 19th, “dety” pieces by other artists, featuring the word in Cyrrilic, writ large on the ground have begun to appear around the world, such as a “dety” piece at the square of the Czech National Theatre in Prague on March 22nd by a number of people including Oldřich Morys, and another “dety” piece which appeared on March 24th, at the Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw by the Dramatyczny Kolektyw . The nature of the connection between these later, “dety” – installations and Bluestocking’s is yet unknown.
More about Mary Bluestocking:
Bluestocking holds a bachelor of fine art in visual art from the State University of New York, Purchase College, School of Visual Arts, USA and a master of arts in international migration and ethnic relations from Malmö, University, Sweden. She has observed five Ukrainian elections as an international observer in the regions of Kyiv, Cherkasy, Dnipro and Khmelnytskyi.
Available on Google Arts & Culture artworks, artifacts, and interviews about agriculture and the history of Metayage.
La Mazzadria. Arturo Faldi
Google Arts & Culture has recently added to its repertoire an online exhibition on sharecropping, which tells the main features through the history of an ancient agricultural center in the northeast Italian region Friuli Venezia Giulia. The system of sharecropping (The Italian mezzadria) was a type of land ownership where the farmer (sharecropper) used the land of an owner (proprietor) receiving a part of the products, usually half. The exhibition recounts these years both from the point of view of the proprietors such as the Morassutti family that during the 20th century in Friuli Venezia Giulia represented a typical family of landowners stipulating sharecropping contracts and from that of the sharecroppers’ thanks to a series of interviews, historical images, and texts that summarize the modalities of this type of agricultural contract. The exhibition aims to highlight the different parts, also investigating the figure of the so-called “Padroni ” (landlords). Historical photos, a clip of a 1984 news report kindly granted by the historical archives of the Istituto Luce, images of original artifacts such as the colonial booklet, a key element for the management of income, make up a story that, thanks to the new, immersive way of Google Arts & Culture to experience art, history, and culture brings the viewer to experience the history and culture of a world that may seem distant but that, after all, dates back less than 50 years.
Giovanni Morassutti, creator of the exhibition and founder of Art Aia – Creatives / In / Residence, partner of the online platform wants to raise reflections on the model of collaboration that characterized Italy during the last century, underlining how the sense of sharing and collaboration between the families of sharecroppers and in some cases also between proprietors and sharecroppers represents a value to be inspired even today. “The Mezzadria has always intrigued me,” Morassutti says. “I think it’s important to talk about it openly, also to be able to confront its dynamics, each with his own experience.
The exhibition also recounts the transition of the spaces of the agricultural center into cultural spaces dedicated to the development of the creative process, as testified in a brief interview by John Strasberg, son of Lee Strasberg, Morassutti’s teacher and long-time collaborator, who spent periods at the Friulian agricultural center teaching acting to actors from all over Europe.
Finally, the farmyard, intended as a place of meeting and aggregation, represents the fulcrum of the exhibition and invites the viewer to reflect on the importance of creating opportunities for exchange and sharing in a natural context where you can establish contact with simple things.
Art Aia – Creatives / In / Residence is very pleased to be featured on Econote.
Photo by Alan Morassut
What is Econote ?
Econote is an independent magazine and a cultural association: a project born in Naples in March 2008 by Marianna Sansone, journalist and graduate in sociology, always attentive to issues of sustainability.
Art Aia – Creatives / In / Residence, in collaborazione con the Arctic Cycle, presenta il progetto Climate Change Theatre Action, una serie di letture e spettacoli di brevi opere teatrali scritte da drammaturghi di tutto il mondo sul tema del cambiamento climatico e del Green New Deal. Un progetto che invita le comunità territoriali ad intraprendere azioni per sensibilizzare sull’emergenza climatica. Il progetto e´organizzato anche dal Center for Sustainable Practices in the Arts con cui Morassutti aveva già collaborato nel 2018 nella residenza Ate in pratiche artistiche sostenibili.
Le dichiarazioni di Giovanni Morassutti :
“Amo la mia terra e la pandemia mi ha fatto prendere consapevolezza di voler tornare alle mie origini. Sto lavorando ad un’iniziativa internazionale di teatro che rispecchia il mio impegno verso l’ambiente. Intendo sensibilizzare il pubblico sul cambiamento climatico e sul Green New Deal organizzando un evento sulle rive del fiume Tagliamento, a simbolo della sua autenticità come fiume morfologicamente intatto.Avevo già collaborato con il Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts e grazie a Google Arts & Culture abbiamo fatto conoscere ad un pubblico internazionale le pratiche artistiche in funzione della sostenibilità ambientale. Spero che queste iniziative come altre a seguire possano sensibilizzare i fruitori su temi legati al riscaldamento globale, al cambiamento climatico e al rischio che sta correndo la biodiversità. Ritengo che il teatro, come tutte le arti, abbia il compito di sensibilizzare il pubblico su temi così urgenti”.
Art Aia – Creatives / In / Residence is an international art residency for artistic production and research that combines art, environmental sustainability, and Eco-therapy practices. It focuses on the development of the creative process, facilitating cultural exchange across borders. The venue is located near the Comune of Sesto al Reghena in the north-eastern Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
ART AIA - CREATIVES IN RESIDENCE 