The first International Forum on the Sustainability of Cultural Institutions, a widespread, hybrid event that will bring together practitioners, scholars, and researchers from around the world, will take place Sept. 26-28, 2025. The three-day initiative will span multiple venues: Santa Sofia (Forlì-Cesena), in the Vero Stoppioni Municipal Gallery of Contemporary Art, New York’s Climate Week on Governors Island with a table coordinated by MOFAD - Museum of Food and Drink, and Guangzhou (China), at the Songshan Lake Boxes Art Museum in Dongguan, in collaboration with the Institute of Digital Art and Technology of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. Live streaming on YouTube(accessible at this link) will provide free access to anyone, in Italian, English and Chinese.
Santa Sofia, a small village in the Romagna Apennines at the foot of the National Park of Casentino Forests, Mount Falterona and Campigna, thus assumes a central role as the node of a global crossroads of ideas and visions, capable of connecting local contexts to international scenarios. The Forum, promoted by the Municipality of Santa Sofia, the Emilia-Romagna Region and the Casentino Forests National Park, is organized by Institution, a startup founded in 2024 by contemporary art curator Fabio Cavallucci, in collaboration with an international team of young professionals active in the fields of art, culture and economics. The Forum addresses the sustainability of cultural institutions as a concrete practice. Cultural institutions are then interpreted as living ecosystems, intertwined with the territory and society, capable of adaptation, transformation and care. The event proposes a critical reflection on sustainability in all its dimensions, environmental, economic and social, often reduced to a mere label, with the aim of restoring its meaning and concrete applicability.
The agenda includes eight thematic tables and three international keynote lectures spread over the three days, dedicated to research, heritage as active memory, circularity, territorial collaboration, human & more-than-human, economic ecosystems, education and digital technologies. Each table aims to generate practical answers to specific questions: measurement and reduction of cultural industry emissions, integration of creative research and heritage preservation, use of digital tools to decrease environmental impact and foster accessibility, sharing of resources between different institutions. The results will be compiled in a dossier containing ideas, proposals and guidelines for applied sustainability in cultural, technological and environmental fields. The program includes moments of formal discussion and spaces for informal dialogue, as in the table on heritages understood as living memory, where tasting of local culinary heritage accompanies the discussion.
The Forum will also be an opportunity to present the Institution’s digital platform, designed for new ways of enjoying art, including through virtual reality. Speakers include Timothy Morton, a philosopher specializing in ecological studies; Jérôme Bel, an international choreographer; and Zigeng Wang, an architect with projects on circularity. Tables will be moderated by experts such as Małgorzata Ludwisiak (CIMAM, museum management expert), Alice Cappelli (Social Designer), Riccardo Varini (Architect and lecturer in Design), Edith Doron (museum professional), Nicola Bianchi (Deputy Director Edi Confcommercio), Christina Zheng Yi (art critic and curator), Nazli Parvizi (President MOFAD New York) and Valentina Avanzini (curator and co-director of Animot).
The public will actively participate in both physical and online venues, in line with the goal of building sustainability through co-participation. The event is designed to reduce environmental impact, favoring online interventions and limiting travel, with offsetting CO₂ emissions through a tree planting program in collaboration with Alberitalia. The choice of Santa Sofia is not accidental. The dynamic and resilient Emilia-Romagna context makes it possible to transform the results of the Forum into concrete actions. In collaboration with the local association Osservo, the Circular Network for the Territory was created, an interactive digital map to share resources, knowledge and places, and activate synergies between cultural, social and economic realities. In parallel, a ninth permanent table, composed of local actors, will develop over time, involving the municipality, region and local institutions to generate sustainable cultural and social models. The project is coordinated by Lucilla Grossi, a designer and doctoral candidate at the Doctorate of National Interest in Design for Made in Italy, with the collaboration of Lara Gaeta, Masha Shramko, Lifu Wang, Damini Yadav, Milana Zakarieva, Cecilia Ricciardi and Pier Servetti, in constant dialogue with Chiara Bellini, councillor for Culture of Santa Sofia, and the Culture Office of the Municipalities of Galeata, Santa Sofia and Premilcuore.
Key partners supporting the initiative include Fondazione LAM - Per le arti contemporanee, founded by Loretta Amadori and active in the Cesena cultural scene, Fondazione Cassa dei Risparmi di Forlì, committed to supporting cultural initiatives in the province, and Gestholding, a Forlì-based company specializing in sustainable transportation. Other supporters include Conad Santa Sofia City and BCC Credito Cooperativo. Technical partners include Osteria La Campanara di Pianetto, Stabilimento Tipografico dei Comuni and the Regional Forest Nursery “Castellaro.”
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| First international forum on sustainability of cultural institutions kicks off |
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