The event will take place in the garden of Istituto Svizzero from H12:30 to H14:30.
Free entrance, register here.

Experiences of Interdependence

«Experiences of Interdependence» is a quote from an exchange process that has started in May 2023 and will be intensified in the framework of the Summer School Art and Activism at Istituto Svizzero in Rome. At the beginning of this process was an open question: How can art position itself in relation to current activist efforts and how can a dialogue be strengthened? – Eleven artists and art researchers associated with the Institute for Contemporary Art Research at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) started to discuss this question in preliminary meetings that served to develop the program of the Summer School. During these conversations they questioned the discourses that feed alliances or distances between art and activism. Rather they asked about shared interests and experiences, for instance, with the entanglement of climate crisis, migration, and food, and with the forms of oppression and sovereignty that are ruling actual policies. These discussions form the grounds for encounters with artists, communities and organizations in Rome during the Summer School, opening to the forms of solidarity and alliance that are occupying spaces and counter narratives in the city.

On September 8, the Summer School group and its local dialogue partners will meet for a participatory harvest in the garden of Istituto Svizzero. The event will revolve around the practice of collective cooking and food, inviting local realities to make visible the intertwining of climate crisis, migration and extractivism. With the aim of creating a convivial and hospitable moment open to the public, the group invites everyone to taste the (culinary) results of the collective’s exchange process and to listen to the stories they embody.

After lunch, the Summer School will move to the Mediterranea Saving Humans Festival A Bordo, at the Città dell’Altra Economia, in the Testaccio district. An invitation to participate from 3pm in the festival programme, with a focus on the current scenario of migration, climate and war in Europe and beyond.

The participants of the Summer School are MFA-students of ZHdK’s Department of Fine Arts, doctoral and postdoctoral researchers associated with the IfCAR, and professors from the cooperation partner Mozarteum University Salzburg.

The event may be photographed and/or video recorded for archival, educational, and related promotional purposes. By attending this event, you are giving your consent to be photographed and/or video recorded.