Feelings of Togetherness

Trieste Contemporanea is preparing for an exciting June 2025, as it marks its 30th birthday on June 27. Whilst the call for the Young European Artist Trieste Contemporanea Award is open until May 25, 2025 to Eastern European artists under the age of 30 (the application is free and can be completed by filling out an online form on Trieste Contemporanea’s website), a series of Feelings of Togetherness exhibitions, events, performances and conversations will run in June, and throughout the fall.

On the International Archives Day, June 9, a discussion will take place with curators from the Secondary Archive, an extraordinary platform for women artists from Central and Eastern Europe run by Polish Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation.

On June 20, at the finissage of the exhibition Unfolding Desire (a co-production with AiR Trieste), AiR’s curator Francesca Lazzarini and Canadian curator Elham Puriya Mehr will discuss the outcomes of this art project’s research in the archive of one of the most interesting paths of innovation in psychiatric care in the 70s, which took place in Trieste. 

Two exhibitions in Trieste and an online surprise event will then be the heart of the 30th anniversary festivities.
The shows will take place in the Sala Veruda of the Palazzo Costanzi (in co-organisation with the Trieste City Hall), from June 24 to July 6, and at the Studio Tommaseo, from June 27 to September 26. They will feature artwork, videos, photographs, books, prints and documents that retrace thirty years of continuous exchange—within a European network that has gradually taken shape over time. This vibrant and multifaceted activity has always been aimed at fostering open dialogue among people, art professionals and the public facts of visual art, as expressed by the Trieste cultural project since 1995 in its subheading Dialogues with the Art of Central Eastern Europe.

The online event will be visible on June 27, the actual anniversary day. Trieste Contemporanea gratefully dedicates this multi-geographic and multilingual event to all the friends who, over the years, have collaborated and supported a unique journey through contemporary art in Europe. The instructions on how to participate in this event will be released via a newsletter on June 10 (Trieste Contemporanea invites new friends wishing to participate in the social media event to subscribe to Trieste Contemporanea’s newsletters through the menu of its website).

In conjunction with these June events, the YEATCA winner will be announced. Running since 1999, the Award has over the years recognized young talents such as Paweł Althamer, Ivan Moudov, Alberto Tadiello, Kristina Buch and Selma Selman, among others.

The exhibition program at Via del Monte 2/1 will then continue with a show by German photographer Heidi Specker dedicated to Aenne Biermann (October 2–November 12, 2025); followed by the project Mona Lisa by Berlin-based filmmaker Helga Fanderl (a co-production with Altriformati-Venice, November 15–December 12, 2025); and finally, the exhibition by the 2025 YEACTA winner will open on December 18, 2025.

Trieste Contemporanea is an Italian center for the study and promotion of contemporary visual art, also known for organizing the CEI Venice Forum for Contemporary Art Curators from Central Eastern Europe during the preview days of the Venice Biennale.