At the Farnesina the award ceremony of a competition addressed to Italian schools abroad to promote the accessibility of contemporary art to the visually impaired people.
To encourage reflection on diversity and visual disability, and to promote knowledge of the Farnesina Collection: these are the goals of the competition ArteOltreConfine, addressed to students from Italian schools abroad who have reproduced a work of art from the Farnesina Collection on three-dimensional formats enjoyable through touch.
The competition was promoted by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Omero State Tactile Museum in Ancona, together with the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Education and Merit and the Ministry of University and Research, as part of the Arteinsieme Biennial.
Ambassador Pasquale Quito Terracciano, Director General for Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, stated: “This is an initiative that weaves together different elements of cultural diplomacy: young people, Italian art and inclusiveness. Thanks to the competition, students from Italian schools abroad have discovered the Farnesina Collection, and they have been entrusted with the task of enhancing it and making it more accessible.”.
ArteOltreConfine is a project that experiments and traces new and inclusive pedagogical pathways in the area of knowledge, study and enjoyment of art. A decisive role is played by multisensoriality – i.e. the involvement in learning and in the relationship with art, already theorised by Maria Montessori over a century ago and currently recognised by neuroscience – of all our senses and no longer just the visual one. It is by no mere no coincidence that the protagonist is contemporary art which – through its multiple languages – often addresses the user’s entire sensoriality, allowing for full participation in the aesthetic experience of the visually impaired and other people.” (Andrea Socrati, in charge of Accessibility for the Omero Museum)
The finalists, for the Primary School category, are the second class of the Italian State Comprehensive Institute “Leonardo da Vinci” in Paris, with a tactile book inspired by Mirko Basaldella‘s work La grande madre, and the multi-grade class of the Italian Primary and Infant School in Izmir, with a reproduction of Mario Ceroli‘s work Bocca della verità. For the Secondary School category, the winners are the students of the Italian Secondary School “Pietro Della Valle” in Tehran, with a remake of the work Riflessa n.7 by Pietro Consagra, and the students of the Italian section of the bilingual Artistic School “Freudenberg” in Zurich, with a reworking of the work Untitled by Jannis Kounellis.
On 16 December 2022 the proclamation of the two winning schools will take place at the Farnesina (Aldo Moro Hall, 10.30 a.m.). The Farnesina Collection, open to the public on the same day, will exhibit the four finalist works.
There will also be guided tours for the visually impaired people, with a tactile path to discover important works of the Collection, with the aim of providing a new and more inclusive way to discover contemporary art. The Farnesina Collection, with the supervision of the Omero Museum, has created 10 panels dedicated to the most important halls of the Farnesina Palace: the panels are at a lowered height for visitors in wheelchairs, printed in characters suitable for the visually impaired people, translated into English and with a Braille version.
For more information: dgdp-05.comunicazione@esteri.it
