An artists’ residency could work as a closed working area, just giving time, space and (financial and ideal) support to the artists far away from their normal every day life. In Villa Romana we always tried to keep all doors open, to create a public space parallel to the individual studio appartments. The exhibition spaces, the garden were embedded in the energy of a living experience, are no white cubes at all. As much as we kept the doors open Villa Romana is not a space with an anonymous public but a place for subjectivities and resistances. Thus the house and the garden are inhabited by artists working there and by a public which feels at home after few instants. Feeling at home means to be welcomed, to be listened, to be able to change your position from a guest to an activist, a contributor. The danger while speaking of a „home“ is to think through exclusion, who is in and who is out. But the dynamics with and of the public never led to this dead end street.
The wish for a public has to do with the freedom of expression, of subjectivity and the desire for exchange and change. It means to create a place in the world, not apart. It means to enable a kind of societal space, a sense of common good, a room of attention and debate. I think in the Florentine context Villa Romana is specially appreciated because it is a generous and transnational space, not at the service of any nation, special community or circle of interest. It is a meeting place where you always meet unexpected people beside the ones you expected.
Nevertheless we are aware that when we speak of public it is about people who are interested in what artists do, research, question, propose, ask for. But these people then also listened to the stories of migrants from Kenia, Syria or Afghanistan or the migrant women living in town or to the songs of young boys from Mali who were waiting since five years for their recognition as asylum seekers,. People were also listening to a critical and subjective story of wine economy in Tuscany or the art of fermentation or the plea for a sustainable food supply chain or meta stable systems in nature and society and they were following year after year the African Diaspora Film Festival. With the Scuola Popolare in 2020/2021 we made another approach: an Open Call for artists and activists to propose workshops, common conversations. We received more than 130 proposals. We left our place on the hill and tried to collaborate with a non art public in the neighborhood, the Casa del Popolo di Galluzzo. An first step which would need much attention, care and exchange for further development. All this – and many, many things not mentioned – showed us again and again the potential of a public, the potential of an open community. This potential was and is always much bigger than what we succeed in realizing. It encouraged everybody. The idea of a public is very much the idea and the need of a republic.
Can you take over with your thoughts about going public?