Co-Ecologies program

Fabrica introduces Co-Ecologies, the next semester program dedicated to the synergy between humans and nature.

Fabrica is a renaissance-inspired, learning-by-doing research center, located 30 km from Venice, Italy, in a 17th century villa renovated by Japanese architect Tadao Ando.

Every semester, around 20 creative talents—25-year-old or under—are selected from all over the world to speculate and experiment on a specific theme, through a constant contamination between disciplines such as photography, design, film, writing, music/sound, fine arts and digital media.

With a legacy of fostering social change through a cross-cultural approach, Fabrica provides an intensive program that includes lectures, workshops, seminars, concerts, and the development of a personal research project leading to a final live exhibition at the end of the semester.

The current program is directed by artist, filmmaker and former Fabrica resident Carlos Casas.

The theme for the autumn/winter semester is Co-Ecologies. The program envisions a future in which our species will become aware of its co-dependency with the environment and the cooperation between disciplines will provide novel solutions to the stagnation resulting from the climate crisis. 

During the semester, the residents will question the biological, geological, and ecological processes that new technologies and art practices are putting forward as alternatives frameworks of living and co-existing on our planet. In particular, they will discuss issues of interspecies communion, material futures, data-oriented art practices, sonic ecology, geo-engineering, media ecologies and environmental anthropology, looking for ways to secure our planet’s environmental future for the benefit of present and future generations.

The semester will start on September 14 with a commencement lecture by writer and researcher Laura Tripaldi. It will unfold through an intense program of lectures, workshops, screenings and seminars held by globally renowned contemporary artists, researchers and curators. Musician and composer Chris Watson, artists and directors Matthew C. Wilson and Emilia Tapprest, design and art studios Metahaven and Fuse, center for artistic experimentation Institute for Postnatural Studies, filmmaker and photographer Gary Huswit, architect and urbanist John Palmesino, graphic design studio Team Thursday, photographer Marina Caneve, visual artist Christina Seely, artists Jenna Sutela, Jana Winderen, Michael Wang, Charles Stankievech, Melissa Dubbin and Aaron Davidson.

For more information on the program please visit fabrica.it.

Some of the mentors involved in previous semester were Tim Ingold, Enrico Malatesta & Attila Faravelli, Haroon Mirza, Dora Budor, Carl Stone, Rie Nakajima, Marten Spangberg, Borut Peterlin, Luca Boffi /Alberonero, Tyler Whisnand, Brynjar Sigurðarson, Elena Biserna, Nicol Vizioli.

In almost thirty years of history, Fabrica has welcomed over 800 young creative talents from all over the world, as well as thinkers and luminaries that have contributed to shape the present that we live in and envision the future that might await us. Some of them are Marina Abramović, Bruce Sterling, Sebastião Salgado, Maira Kalman, Al Gore, Peter Gabriel, Abbas Kiarostami, Martin Parr, Duane Michals,, Michael Nyman, Ferran Adria, Andres Serrano, Alan Fletcher, Massimo Vignelli, Mike Mills, Mario Botta, William Klein, Issey Miyake, Ed Fella, David Carson, Godfrey Reggio, Lewis Baltz, Philippe Starck, Marti Guixe, Wim Crouwel, Stefan Sagmeister, Francesco Bonami, Franco Battiato, Stephen Gill, Heiner Goebbels, Daito Manabe, Martino Gamper, Roberto Saviano, Alejandro Aravena, John Cale, Erik Kessels, Joseph Kosuth, Jurgen Bey, Peter Saville.

The selected artists-in-residence for the Co-Ecologies semester, from September 2023 to February 2024, are: Dora Ramljak (Croatia), Kaaya van Ewijk (The Netherlands), Sevilia Ibrahimova (Ukraine), Alice Nascimben (Italy), Allison Costa (USA), Josephine Illingworth (UK), Vivek Jain (India), Jeure Tavare (Dominican Republic), Ram Sethuraman (India), Joe Habben (UK), Max Bufardeci (Australia), Yirui Fang (China), Davide Balda (Italy), Jihyun Park (South Korea), Maria Fernanda Vaca Angulo (Colombia), Alessandra Centorbi (Spain), Sara Fichter (Switzerland).

The themes chosen for the next semesters are: Kinship (March–July 2024), Ruralism (September 2024–February 2025). Applications for the September 2024–February 2025 program are open. Apply here

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