Meridiana Prize kicks off: Naples' Madre supports young curators and artists who enhance the south

A new space of visibility and support for emerging voices of contemporary art in Southern Italy is taking shape at the Madre Museum in Naples. It is the Meridiana Prize, in its first edition, promoted by the Donnaregina Foundation for Contemporary Arts in collaboration with the Amici del Madre association, under the curatorship of Mario Francesco Simeone. It is a competition aimed at curators and curators who want to bring out artists linked to the South, with the aim of enhancing the creative energies of the area, offering economic tools, visibility and opportunities for confrontation with cultural institutions.

The deadline to participate is June 30, 2025. Until that date, applicants can propose exhibition projects that have a clear curatorial vision and include the participation of three artists. The call is aimed at curators and curators under 45, who are asked to devise an unpublished exhibition that can be installed in the spaces of the Madre museum by the end of the year. While the curatorial concept may contain works already exhibited in other contexts, it must be configured as new and original in its entirety.

The composition of the artistic team required provides a well-defined structure: at least two of the artists involved must be under 35 and have a connection to one of the regions of Southern Italy, namely Abruzzo, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise, Puglia, Sardinia or Sicily. The third artist can belong to any age group, but must boast a significant relationship with Naples or Campania, evidenced through previous artistic or professional experiences. The participation of a project composed entirely of three artists under 35 is also allowed, provided that the territorial requirements indicated in the regulations are met.

The Meridiana Prize has a structure that focuses on the quality of the curatorial proposal and the effectiveness of the dialogue between works, artists and the cultural context of Southern Italy. To the curator or curator of the winning project will go a cash award worth 5,000 euros. For each of the three selected artists, on the other hand, there is a contribution of 7,000 euros earmarked for the production of the works to be exhibited at the museum. The selected exhibition project will be realized at Madre by the end of 2025, thus contributing to enriching the museum’s cultural program with a young but rigorous proposal capable of rendering the complexity and richness of the southern art scene.

The theme chosen for this first edition of the prize is “ogni cosa è tutte le cose,” an evocative title taken from Elio Vittorini’s Conversazione in Sicilia. The work, published in 1941, is considered a milestone for the construction of a modern Southern Italian identity, capable of fusing memory, vision and resistance. The quotation is thus transformed into an invitation to embrace plurality, to consider art as a space of conjunction between different experiences, geographies and temporalities. The sundial line, from which the prize takes its name, is a recurring architectural element in public and private structures in the South: a solar track that marks the passage of time and the position of the sun, a symbol of light, revelation and orientation. Similarly, the Meridiana Prize aims to be a tool to highlight the artistic experiences that cross and animate the South, connecting territories and languages through an action of discovery and enhancement.

The commission charged with selecting the winning project will be composed of leading figures in the Italian art scene. Chairing it will be Angela Tecce, president of Fondazione Donnaregina per le Arti Contemporanee. Along with her will be Eva Fabbris, director of the Madre Museum, a representative of the Amici del Madre association and two professionals in the field identified by the promoting institutions. The jury’s work will be based on well-defined criteria: theoretical, aesthetic and methodological coherence of the project; the project’s ability to dialogue with the cultural context of Southern Italy; and compliance with the concept chosen for the inaugural edition. Alongside the winning project, the committee will also identify a runner-up, whose work may possibly be implemented at a later stage, again within the museum’s cultural program.

The initiative is made possible thanks to the support of Seda and Anthony Morato, two entrepreneurial realities that have decided to support this project, sharing its aims and focus on contemporary languages. The Meridiana Prize is thus part of a broader strategy of Madre, which wants to present itself as a place of reflection and dialogue, a crossroads of artistic and social experiences, with an eye not only to the present but also to future generations of artists and cultural professionals.

“Meridiana makes the passage of time visible,” explain the President of the Fondazione Donnaregina per le arti contemporanee Angela Tecce and Madre Museum Director Eva Fabbris “This award is a tangible sign of attention by the museum and the Amici del Madre to the artistic research of the latest generations in southern Italy. Meridiana will offer them not only support but the opportunity to be ’observed’ by a shrewd critical eye that highlights their potential and relates them to the dynamics at work in the current context of contemporary art.”

To participate in the Meridiana Prize, you can view the full call for entries and all application procedures on the museum’s official website, www.madrenapoli.it.

Meridiana Prize kicks off: Naples' Madre supports young curators and artists who enhance the south

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