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ph. Massimo D'Amato

AVVISO: POSTI ESAURITI

Dolce lotta è una creazione site specific di Virgilio Sieni ideata per il borgo storico di Matera La Martella nell’ambito del festival "So Far So Close. Esercizi di vicinanza" Il laboratorio è rivolto a cittadini di ogni età, abilità e professione, ma anche ad artisti e performer interessati a prendere parte a un’esperienza artistica fondata sul senso della memoria in relazione al gesto. Il percorso si sviluppa a partire dallo studio di sequenze di gesti inventati, attivando il corpo attraverso esercizi mirati all’ascolto e alla consapevolezza percettiva. Il gesto viene messo in relazione ad un oggetto affettivo, simbolo di racconti, immagini, viaggi. Un oggetto caro ma allo stesso tempo dimenticato, accudito, riposto in luoghi nascosti della casa, inamovibile, che ci ha accompagnato nella vita e che lascia emergere ricordi. Tutti i partecipanti andranno a formare, con i loro oggetti, un grande quadrilatero all’aperto: una sorta di agorà-paesaggio composto da stati d’affezione e gesti rituali. Il laboratorio si concluderà con una performance aperta al pubblico.

Ciascun partecipante dovrà portare un oggetto di dimensioni medie che possa stare in piedi da solo e che sia visibile a distanza (es: vaso, anfora, palla, triciclo, sedia, grande giocattolo, etc..).

DESTINATARI 
cittadini, artisti e performer di ogni età, anche senza conoscenze specifiche di danza

CALENDARIO

Laboratorio

sabato 19 settembre | ore 16.00 - incontro di presentazione del progetto
lunedì 21 settembre | ore 17.30-20.00
martedì 22 settembre | ore 17.30-18.30
mercoledì 23 settembre | ore 17.30-20.00
venerdì 25 settembre | ore 17.30-20.00

Luogo:Teatro Ludovico Quaroni | La Martella, Piazza Montegrappa

Performance

sabato 26 settembre | ore 18.00 (ore 16.00 convocazione per i partecipanti al laboratorio)

Luogo:Teatro Ludovico Quaroni | La Martella, Piazza Montegrappa

Per la buona riuscita del progetto, ogni partecipante dovrà garantire la propria disponibilità per tutti i giorni di prove indicati in calendario e per la presentazione pubblica.

Il laboratorio verrà effettuato nel pieno rispetto della normativa anti-contagio, come disposto dal DPCM 11 giugno 2020.
La partecipazione è a numero limitato.

ISCRIZIONI
Le domande devono pervenire entro giovedì 17 settembre 2020 all’indirizzo mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. indicando nome, cognome e numero di telefono e nell’oggetto "Partecipazione laboratorio Dolce lotta".

TRATTAMENTO DEI DATI PERSONALI
Tali dati sono richiesti ai sensi della normativa anti COVID 19 e saranno conservati per un periodo minimo di 14 giorni successivi alla partecipazione all’evento e in ottemperanza al DCPM dell’11 giugno 2020 in materia di contrasto e contenimento della diffusione del virus Covid-19. Tali dati non verranno diffusi o utilizzati per altri scopi ma esclusivamente per finalità sanitarie legate ad eventuali indagini epidemiologiche avviate dalle autorità sanitarie.

DOLCE LOTTA è un progetto di Virgilio Sieni con la collaborazione e cura di Giulia Mureddu e Delfina Stella

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From 12 September to the end of October, Matera and various remote areas of Basilicata Region will be the venues for the “So Far So Close. Esercizi di vicinanza (exercises of closeness)” Festival of Performing Arts produced by the Matera Basilicata 2019 Foundation, with artistic collaboration from Silvia Bottiroli and Cristina Ventrucci, in partnership with APT Basilicata and ASM Matera and under the patronage of the Municipalities of Matera, Montescaglioso, Venosa, San Mauro Forte, Cirigliano, Latronico and San Severino Lucano. 

The “So Far So Close" programme offers exercises of closeness as a way of re-embracing the existing reality through the performing arts, with a new awareness of our shared lives in an "infected planet", and rediscovering the force of collective action.

The Festival’s leading artists are Emma Dante, Virgilio Sieni, Chiara Guidi, Annamaria Ajmone, MK, Motus, Deflorian and Tagliarini and Luigi Coppola, who for the occasion take a careful, delicate new look at the relationships created by live meetings. Proximity is a central element of their work, including in terms of the relationship between interpreting reality and constructing the imagination, in which the theatre in all its forms and with all its influences – from drama to performance, from the relationship with the cinema and music to dance and from the experience of public and relational art – becomes a tool for studying relations and places through intertwined narratives, and dedicating attention to the relationship between the human and the non-human and between the visible and invisible in a city that has always brought these dimensions together as its vocation.

In Matera and in Basilicata, we propose exercises for a renewed citizenship, in the wake of the experience that made our land a special place for shared creative processes and the relationship between art and space in the course of 2019.

Through the research carried out by the Open Design School, a project that was a pillar of Matera 2019, the Festival is an experiment aimed at putting on live events in the time of COVID by means of a study of new relationships and codes of social behaviour so that notwithstanding the distance between them, participants in the performance can feel that they are fully involved and protagonists in it. Emblematically, the name "So Far So Close" is an expression both of the work that is intended to be done on the new relations among people in the time of social distancing and the new relations that can be constructed between urban and remote areas.

Find out about the full programme of festival events

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Quanto dura un anno a Matera?

A questa domanda proveremo a rispondere giovedì 30 luglio dalle 17:00 in diretta streaming da Casa Cava con la presentazione del report di monitoraggio dell'anno di Matera Capitale Europea della Cultura e il nuovo portale open data.

Nel corso dell'evento analizzeremo le sfide poste già dal dossier di candidatura di Matera 2019: l'investimento sulle produzioni originali, la cittadinanza culturale, gli impatti sociali.

Parteciperanno all'incontro esperti del terzo settore e della cultura tra cui Carlo Borgomeo (Presidente Fondazione con il Sud), Pierluigi Sacco (IULM), Carola Carazzone (presidente Assifero), Giuseppe Bruno (presidente CGM), Marta Ragozzino (Direzione Regionale Musei Basilicata), Giampaolo d'Andrea (consigliere del Ministro Franceschini), Franco Bianchini (Università di Hull), Rossella Tarantino (Fondazione Matera Basilicata 2019), Paolo Verri, Giuseppe Laterza (Editori Laterza), Marianna Dimona (Comune di Matera), un rappresentante dei produttori culturali di Matera 2019, da poco costituitisi in Comitato. Concluderanno i lavori i rappresentanti del Consiglio di Amministrazione della Fondazione Matera-Basilicata 2019.

Segui la diretta streaming sul canale YouTube di Matera 2019 e interagisci con i relatori!

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Dal 23 Luglio ripartono le attività laboratoriali presso Casino Padula, con il lancio delle attività del FabLab di Open Design School O.Ma.S. “Open Maker Space”, abbreviato in “O+”, un laboratorio di fabbricazione, analogica e digitale, in cui promuovere la sperimentazione, l’apprendimento, l’invenzione, la prototipazione.  

Se sei esperto potrai usarlo come piattaforma di ricerca e sviluppo di progetti, gli utenti occasionali potranno soddisfare esigenze progettuali individuali, le imprese potranno innovare un prodotto o processo, la comunità dei FabLab lo utilizzeranno per attività condivise e senza limiti di età potrai acquisire nuove competenze.

Il FabLab ‘’O+’’ offrirà l’utilizzo di macchinari avanzati, la consulenza su prototipazione e produzione, i corsi di formazione, lo spazio coworking, gli eventi su temi di interesse dell’utenza. Importante sarà la collaborazione con aziende locali e la sperimentazione della formula del FabLab diffuso, che si avvarrà della partnership con la rete di FabLab locali Officine Mediterranee, con cui Open Design School da tempo collabora. 

La fase di lancio delle attività, in partenza il 23 Luglio e in programma fino al 7 Agosto, vedrà l’attivazione di workshop gratuiti, il giovedì dedicati ai bambini dai 7 ai 12 anni e il venerdì ai ragazzi dai 13 ai 19 anni. 

Le attività che proponiamo sono differenziate per fascia d’età, ma avendo in comune l’approccio non formale, il learning by doing e l’apprendimento tra pari, caratteristiche tipiche dei FabLab e del modello Open Design School. I principali ambiti di formazione saranno il design e la stampa 3D, il coding e la robotica, la fabbricazione analogica e digitale.

Le attività per i bambini dai 7 ai 12 anni si avvarranno di strumenti semplificati, che consentano un approccio alle tecnologie nella forma del gioco e con il raggiungimento di obiettivi immediati. La stampa 3D sarà introdotta mediante l’uso di penne 3D, strumenti che consentono la comprensione della trasformazione fisica della materia e dei principi base della stampa in modo diretto e per mezzo della manualità del bambino. Il disegno 3D al computer utilizzerà il software TinkerCAD, pensato per avvicinare i più piccoli ai principi del disegno virtuale. Il coding sarà applicato all’interazione con semplici robot autocostruiti e alla realizzazione di storie di fantasia in ambienti in cui l’architettura avrà un ruolo fondamentale. Saranno inoltre sperimentate applicazioni ludiche di Arduino.

Con i ragazzi dai 13 ai 19 anni impiegheremo anche gli strumenti tecnologici disponibili in laboratorio, come la vinyl cutter, le stampanti 3D, il taglio laser. L’obiettivo è quello di sviluppare in loro la volontà di proporre e produrre, collettivamente, progetti originali nei campi della tecnologia, del design e dell’architettura mediante l’utilizzo di software professionali e kit Arduino.

I workshop si terranno a Casino Padula il giovedì e venerdì, dalle 18:00 alle 20:00, e saranno accessibili ad un massimo di 8 utenti. 
Per l’iscrizione è necessario inviare una mail all’indirizzo This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. entro il martedì precedente al workshop di interesse.

Di seguito il calendario con le attività:

Giovedì 23/07, ore 18.00 - 20.00 - Bambini 7-12 anni SOLD OUT

Graffiti: utilizzeremo la pittura parietale come esempio di produzione per sottrazione. Realizzeremo un telo, decorato in gruppo con colori a tempera e cartoncini decorati con pastelli a cera per rimozione di strati.

Output: Telo decorato in gruppo e cartoncini personalizzati.

Venerdì 24/07, ore 18.00 - 20.00 - Ragazzi 13-19 anni SOLD OUT

Decoreremo le tazze Matera 2019 con il pattern ODS e il logo O+.

Output: tazze decorate da portare a casa.

Venerdì 31/07, ore 18.00 - 20.00 - Ragazzi 13-19 anni SOLD OUT

Disegno 3D con TinkerCAD

Un’introduzione al mondo CAD 3D mediante un software online gratuito che permetterà di comporre geometrie solide predefinite per ottenere oggetti anche complessi. Adatto a tutti, anche a coloro che non hanno esperienza con i software CAD e desiderano avvicinarsi al design 3D in modo semplice e intuitivo.

Output: un modello  virtuale tridimensionale che sarà riprodotto in stampa 3D nell’appuntamento successivo.

Sabato 01/08, ore 10.00 - 12.00 - Bambini 7-12 anni SOLD OUT

Disegno 3D con TinkerCAD

Un’introduzione al mondo CAD 3D mediante un software online gratuito che permette di comporre geometrie solide predefinite per ottenere oggetti anche complessi. Adatto anche ai bambini, darà la possibilità di acquisire concetti quali la spazialità e la prospettiva.

Output: modello virtuale di un oggetto.

Giovedì 06/08, ore 18.00 - 20.00 - Bambini 7-12 anni SOLD OUT

Con l’utilizzo delle penne 3D creeremo oggetti tridimensionali per un’esperienza di gioco che consentirà ai bambini di acquisire in modo semplice concetti complessi, quali la geometria dello spazio e i principi del disegno e della stampa 3D.

Output: oggetti 3D in plastica ecologica da portare a casa.

Venerdì 07/08, ore 18.00 - 20.00 - Ragazzi 13-19 anni SOLD OUT

Stampa 3D

Una panoramica sulla stampa 3D, i principi di funzionamento e i campi di applicazione. Utilizzeremo la stampante 3D a filamento plastico per realizzare un modello e mostrare come avviene la costruzione di oggetti.

Output: oggetto modellato nel workshop del 31/07.

Tutti i workshop si svolgeranno nel rispetto della normativa anti-Covid, pertanto gli utenti avranno l’obbligo di indossare la mascherina e saranno sottoposti alla rilevazione della temperatura in ingresso.

PUBLIC NOTICE FOR THE SELECTION OF EXPERTS FOR THE CREATION OF NEW SPATIAL FORMATS FOR LIVE EVENTS AS PART OF THE “SO FAR, SO CLOSE” FESTIVAL

(updated 14 August 2020)
After careful selection of the 60 applications received, we welcome the 6 new professionals who will join the new Open Design School working group:

Immacolata Alianelli, Designer, Matera
Vito Battista, Visual Designer, Noicattaro (BA)
Francesco Angelo Convertini, Designer expert in self-construction, Locorotondo (BA)
Francesco Lipari, Designer, Campofranco (CL)
Grazia Mappa, Designer, Grottaglie (TA)
Saverio Massaro, Social Designer, Altamura (BA)

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(REGISTRATION DEADLINE BY 11:59 pm, 27th OF JULY 2020)

Open Design School, the Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation design department, is launching the selection of a new multidisciplinary team for the design of new spatial systems and the rethinking of social relations for live events, within the limits imposed by the current pandemia.
The resulting projects, developed together with the artistic team, will be carried out as part of the “So Far, So Close” festival, conceived and created by the Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation, that will generate an open source toolkit to facilitate experimentation accessible to all.

OPEN DESIGN SCHOOL
The Open Design School is a laboratory of interdisciplinary experimentation and innovation, born as a pillar project at the service of the cultural program of Matera 2019, and a fundamental part of the legacy of the European Capital of Culture.
It is a horizontal platform, with no rigid hierarchies, that promotes a peer-to-peer and learning by doing approach in a climate of mutual enrichment.
more information here: website - manual

RATIONALE “SO FAR, SO CLOSE”

The Matera - Basilicata 2019 Foundation remains focused on the aims set out in the candidacy dossier of Matera as European Capital of Culture 2019, with particular reference to the wealth and diversity of cultures in Europe, the promotion of culture and the development of cities.
Up until the end of 2022 the Foundation will be committed to consolidating legacy, strengthening the position of Matera and Basilicata within the creativity sector to become a cultural platform in Southern Italy.

As part of this strategy, the “So far, so close” festival is dedicated to the co-creation of live events and public art projects, with a strong regional dimension, through a co-creation process activated by the Open Design School.

Specifically, the Open Design School method provides workshops to bring together professionals from different disciplines from the world, Italy and Basilicata: from epidemiologists to security engineers, from designers to carpenters, from architects to artists to the public itself. It is a research project about new forms of relations and codification of social behaviors, to ensure that, despite the distance, participants in a performance feel fully involved and protagonists of the event, by applying the logic of co-creation,the flagship of Matera 2019.

The projects will cover different thematic areas according to the specificity of the festival venues: suburbs, provincial areas, natural areas and great cultural spaces, such as “Cava del Sole”, a highly iconic space for Matera 2019.
The working group will be coordinated by the ODS team and will work in collaboration with the festival's curator, performers and other experts to creatively face the challenge of planning public events in the time of COVID.

ACTIVITY CALENDAR
03 - 07 August
warm-up
intensive design workshop for the definition of the project guidelines (online attendance is allowed for foreign nationals)

24 August - 30 October
applied research
production of spatial installations, wayfinding and coding of social and spatial relations, study of flows, creation of the open source manual (attendance required).

WHO ARE WE LOOKING FOR
The workgroup will be composed of 5 professionals to be selected from the following areas of specialization (check “Call for the creation of an open list of experts of Foundation Matera-Basilicata 2019”, Annex 1 “Specialization areas and income ranges”):
- 2 architects, experts in festivals and events set-up, accessibility, tactical urbanism and landscape [cat.E10]
- 1 designer, expert in self-construction, digital and / or analogical fabrication, DIY and hands-on approach [cat.E10]
- 1 service / social designer, expert in design relations and / or in facilitation of processes [cat.E10]
- 1 visual designer [cat.E11]
The selected participants will be approximately 1/3 from Matera and Basilicata, 1/3 from the rest of Italy and 1/3 from abroad.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR
Full-time commitment.
Residency in Matera is mandatory.
Ability to work in multidisciplinary teams.
Good attitude towards sharing.
Knowledge and appreciation of Open Design movement values.
A passion for Matera!
Foreign national professionals (only) can choose to participate online to the warm-up phase.

WHAT WE OFFER
Contribute towards the consolidation of the legacy of European Capital of Culture 2019 and to the national and European debate on new ways to enjoy culture.
Participation in experimental and multidisciplinary research regarding the planning of live events.
Access to a digital and analogue prototyping laboratory to test and self-produce the imagined solutions.
The opportunity to work with a varied creative team, in close contact with the curator, performers, artists and specialized technicians to find innovative answers to a highly topical theme. The opportunity to discover numerous venues of the Basilicata region.
A gross fee total of € 3500 + IVA and/or social and fiscal contributions borne by the Foundation Matera-Basilicata 2019, to be paid on a monthly basis.
Travel expenses reimbursement for foreigners (only) up to a maximum of € 500, for physical participation during the warm-up phase.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE
Participation to this selection requires registration to the “Open list of experts of Foundation Matera-Basilicata 2019”.
In addition, all interested parties are invited to send their portfolio and motivational letter, to the following e-mail address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
All communications must be received, under penalty of exclusion, no later than 27 July 2020 at 11:59 pm. All the documents must be signed. 
For all information regarding how to apply, minimum access requirements and selection procedures, refer to the “Call for the creation of an open list of experts of Foundation Matera-Basilicata 2019”.
Please note that the CV can also be uploaded in a non-European format.

If you are already registered on the portal, please check the status of your registration and, if needed, proceed with the renewal.

Application to the selection as specified above, does not give rise to any right or expectation that the subject may obtain a professional assignment of any nature from the Foundation Matera-Basilicata 2019.

SELECTION PROCEDURE
The selection will take place through comparison and evaluation of the curricula and subsequent interview for experts deemed to possess the technical and professional requirements for this notice.

CLARIFICATIONS
For more clarifications about the project, interested parties can send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

INFORMATION AND ADVERTISING
This Notice, as well as the results of the comparative procedure, will be appropriately advertised on the institutional website and on the Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation dedicated social media.

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Ripartire da alcune delle fasce più colpite dall’emergenza Coronavirus, i malati, gli anziani, gli operatori sanitari e i musicisti, per riprendere il viaggio di Matera 2019 lì dove è stato interrotto. È stato questo lo spirito che ha animato le iniziative che abbiamo organizzato insieme al  Comune di Matera fra la città dei Sassi e Potenza il 21 giugno per la 26esima edizione della Festa della Musica, promossa dal Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e dall’Associazione italiana per la promozione della festa della musica.

In continuità con il percorso fatto nell’anno della Capitale Europea della Cultura, abbiamo deciso di portare la musica nei luoghi emblemi della battaglia al Covid-19 dei due capoluoghi lucani, ovvero gli ospedali e le RSA. Gli Ospedali sono stati, infatti, i presidi dove diverse professionalità fra dirigenti, medici, infermieri, oss e amministrativi, hanno risposto in maniera egregia ed instancabile ad una emergenza senza precedenti, ma anche dove i pazienti vivono ormai da diverso tempo una degenza senza la visita e il conforto dei propri cari. Allo stesso modo, le RSA sono i luoghi i cui residenti e gli operatori hanno vissuto necessariamente in condizioni di isolamento e reclusione. Portare la musica in questi luoghi è stato da un lato un gesto di ringraziamento, di vicinanza e sollievo ai protagonisti di questa fase delicata e dall’altro il segnale che le arti e la cultura sono un balsamo prezioso, capace di alleviare le ferite più profonde dell’anima e della mente.

La giornata è iniziata a Matera con le note della Bassa Musica “Nunzio Paolicelli”- Città di Matera che ha portato allegria nello spazio esterno della Residenza Sanitaria Assistenziale "Brancaccio", per proseguire all’Ospedale Madonna delle Grazie con i violini, il violoncello e il contrabbasso del quartetto "L'altro 900",  esibitosi fra la hall e gli spazi antistanti il reparto infettivi e la zona di osservazione. 

Nel pomeriggio, gli anziani della RSA “Raffaele Acerenza" di Potenza hanno accolto con gioia i brani della migliore tradizione italiana del “Soranno Sax Quartet”, mentre il “Trio Accord” con violino, violoncello e fisarmonica, accompagnato dalla possente voce del soprano, ha fatto risuonare di note e canto l’Ospedale “San Carlo”, fra la hall, il corridoio del reparto di rianimazione e l’ingresso della pneumologia.  Ad emozionare in particolare i presenti, fra medici, infermieri e operatori, l’Ave Maria di Schubert, “forse la più celebre preghiera in musica, in grado di toccare tutti i cuori provati da questo difficile periodo”, come ha sottolineato Giovanna D’Amato, di Ateneo Musica Basilicata, che ha collaborato all’organizzazione dell’iniziativa.

In contemporanea, il Comune di Matera, in collaborazione con l’Associazione Onyx Jazz Club, attraverso una call pubblica ha raccolto sul palco di Casa Cava, a Matera, 18 tra cantanti, cantautori, musicisti e gruppi musicali di ogni età e ogni genere musicale, in un’esibizione trasmessa in diretta streaming fino a tarda sera. 

Dopo i difficili mesi che ci lasciamo alle spalle, la musica, linguaggio universale per antonomasia, è stato lo strumento per donare serenità, ridurre le distanze, riallacciare relazioni, ripartire a fare cultura per e con la comunità.

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Matera passa il testimone a Bergamo a chiusura della prima tappa di Artlab 2020, un'edizione realizzata totalmente online dal 9 al 13 giugno, incentrata sulla condizione del settore culturale durante l’emergenza sanitaria e sulle sue prospettive future. Con il suo percorso di rinascita fino alla nomina a Capitale Europea della Cultura, Matera è diventata un riferimento per Bergamo, città duramente colpita dal Coronavirus e che ospiterà a settembre la seconda tappa di Artlab. Tra le azioni previste per la sua ripartenza, c’è l’unione con la città di Brescia per la candidatura al titolo di Capitale italiana della cultura 2023, proprio sulla scia di Matera 2019. Non un semplice titolo, ma un percorso per ridare entusiasmo al territorio, mettendo la cultura al centro della ricostruzione futura.

In questa speciale edizione di Artlab, che ha visto come main partner la Fondazione Matera Basilicata 2019, il cluster Basilicata Creativa e il Consorzio Materahub,  Matera ha scelto di raccontare il suo percorso attraverso alcuni dei processi di rigenerazione a base culturale sperimentati nelle aree interne della Basilicata, inserendosi nella riflessione suoi luoghi marginali del nostro Paese avviata già prima dell’emergenza Covid e riesplosa oggi nel dibattito nazionale.   In diretta dal Centro Polivalente - Palestra di Resilienza “D’amoroso foco” è arrivata la testimonianza di uno spazio pubblico rigenerato per far sì che la creatività giovanile possa essere il punto di riferimento per i cittadini. La comunità è anche al centro del progetto “Wonder Grottole” che lo scorso anno, grazie alla partnership con Matera 2019 e Airbnb, ha dato vita ad Italian Sabbatical, iniziativa attraverso cui 5 volontari provenienti da diverse parti del mondo hanno vissuto per i mesi estivi nel borgo di Grottole, innescando uno scambio di esperienze, competenze e sguardi sul territorio con gli abitanti del posto. La riflessione sul turismo e il concetto di “cittadino temporaneo”, che sposta l’attenzione dai luoghi alle persone, è stato sin dall’inizio al centro del programma di Matera 2019. Una delle strade per evitare la competizione fra residenti e turisti causata dall’overtourism, è stata quella di allargare i confini della città e della regione e, in questo senso le aree interne giocano un ruolo fondamentale.  Diversi perciò sono stati i progetti di Matera 2019 che hanno coinvolto le comunità “remote” della Basilicata, da Capitale per un giorno ad AltoFest, a Gardentopia. In queste comunità la presenza degli artisti, che hanno lavorato sulla valorizzazione dei patrimoni materiali e immateriali del luogo, ha consentito di generare uno sguardo differente sul proprio territorio in chi lo abita e di portare nuovi stimoli.

Il tema dello spazio pubblico è inoltre al centro delle ricerche e delle attività dell’Open Design School, il laboratorio sperimentale di Matera 2019, che ha realizzato una mappatura dei luoghi della Basilicata in cui poter ospitare gli appuntamenti della Capitale Europea della Cultura. Un’attività attraverso cui è stato possibile rileggere il territorio, realizzata con il coinvolgimento di tecnici, ma anche di creativi e delle comunità che hanno svelato tali spazi.  Il concetto di patrimonio culturale in questo modo si amplia, abbracciando anche la valenza sociale dei luoghi, ossia quanto un spazio ha un portato di valore per le comunità che lo abitano. Nei luoghi si sedimentano storie; sono come organismi viventi, che si trasformano nel tempo.

Uno dei luoghi coinvolti per raccontare Matera all’interno di Artlab 2020 è stato il quartiere de La Martella, nato nella periferia della città, a seguito dello sfollamento dei Sassi e frutto della sperimentazione urbanistica di Adriano Olivetti, incentrata sui bisogni della comunità. La piazza centrale del borgo, insieme al Teatro Quaroni, hanno ospitato la performance “Sono qui” realizzata da #reteteatro41, una rete di 4 compagnie teatrali lucane protagoniste di Matera 2019: IAC (Matera), L’Albero (Melfi), Petra (Satriano), Gommalacca (Potenza). Una riflessione performativa sulle nuove relazioni tra spazio abitato e comunità. Un vero e proprio manifesto dei creativi lucani per la ripartenza post-Covid e post-Matera 2019, che mira a rimettere al centro delle politiche culturali regionali il teatro, l’arte, la musica, lavorando insieme alle comunità, negli spazi pubblici di tutta la Basilicata. 

A chiudere l’edizione materana di Artlab è stato il confronto sulle pratiche e le politiche culturali per le aree interne, cui hanno preso parte operatori culturali, policy makers, fondazioni tra cui Fondazione Matera Basilicata 2019, Fondazione Simbola, Fondazione con il Sud, con le conclusioni affidate a Francesco Monaco, Consulente del Ministro Provenzano per le Aree Interne e Coordinatore SNAI - Strategia Nazionale Aree Interne.

Sul sito della Fondazione Fizaccaraldo è possibile rivedere tutte le sessioni plenarie, le pillole di approfondimento e i webinar di Artlab Matera.

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“DeuS – European Open Design School for Sustainable Regional Development” is a regional Vocational Educational Training project which aims to co-create a European-wide learning and training approach in design, critical thinking, and entrepreneurship to find creative and cost-effective solutions to local challenges, by unlocking the potential of the cultural and creative sector.

DeuS is a pilot project under the European Commission program Erasmus+ and will run for two years by a consortium of ten partners: Fondazione Matera Basilicata 2019 (IT), Consorzio Materahub Industrie Culturali e Creative (IT), Vytautas Magnus University – VMU (LT), XAMK – South Eastern University of Applied Sciences (FI), ECBN – European Creative Business Network (NL), University of Wales Trinity Saint David Royal Charter – UWTSD – Creative Industries Research and Innovation Centre – CIRIC (UK), Creative Region Linz & Upper Austria GmbH (AT), Creative Business Cup Foundation (DK), Valletta 2018 Foundation (MT), Creative Industry Košice – CIKE (SK). 

DeuS is shaped around Open Design School, the pillar project of Matera 2019. Its methodology -  a design laboratory using a peer-to-peer approach, where professionals of any discipline work together sharing knowledge and expertise and testing the design solutions with the local community - will be used for DeuS training activities.

This training methodology will be used to develop a toolkit that will be made available on a Creative Knowledge Platform where the education system, in particular VET (vocational and educational training), and the cultural and creative industries (ICC) professionals will be able to draw on an open source training offer, based on a participatory and co-creation approach. The platform also aims to establish a community for the different target groups across the ICC sector, encouraging cross-sector and cross-border collaboration and promoting the meeting between creatives, policy makers and citizens.

Users can expect high-level and user-friendly training, tools, and sources in support of lifelong learning in the cultural and creative industries with a focused and pragmatic response also to the critical needs of the CCI sector apparent as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. Alongside the digital universe, the project will organize collaborative problem-solving sessions across Europe.  The project will challenge the concept of sustainable local development by focusing on the transformative power of the cultural and creative industries.

The DeuS projects’ ultimate goal is to put human capital, local communities, and the creative and cultural operators at the forefront of regional development strategies, which is exactly what the combination of the Creative Knowledge Platform and the physical training and co-creation events can provide. The goal is to foster open dialogue with policymakers and to show them that the community of educators, creatives and local forces that the project is building is the key to enabling the innovative, sustainable and lasting solutions we need. 

DeuS has launched a set of four surveys to understand the current needs of the cultural and creative industries.The aim is to hear from the stakeholders to gain insights and an in-depth understanding of needs, challenges, barriers and innovative solutions in place across the cultural and creative sector. The information get from the study will go towards creating an optimised training programme and resources for the benefit of cultural and creative industries across Europe.

Through the DeuS project the legacies of the experience of Matera European Capital of Culture 2019 are beginning to be harnessed. The wealth of skills and good practices developed in this path from Open Design School,  will be transferred to an international think tank, offering innovative solutions for the benefit of the local and European creative and cultural sector.

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With an extraordinary year (2019) and path (the one that led us to 2019) behind us, the Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation is now working towards the future. It is true that due to the COVID-19 emergency, some projects have been postponed, others are being developed (also in light of the new perception of reality and our way of enjoying culture that will surely undergo changes), and others are still flourishing in these days and are a source of support to those who are on the front line of the current Coronavirus emergency.

With the experimental design workshop “Open Design School”, which was a pillar project of the Matera 2019 programme and legacy, thanks to various tools and professionals, 500 face shields have been created for the healthcare workers of Basilicata.

At the request of the Basilicata emergency services and in coordination with the Regional Civil Protection for the distribution, makers, professionals, digital and medical craftsmen have become involved in these activities included in the widespread digital manufacturing project developed by Officine Mediterranee, a network of Southern Italy fab labs, coordinated with the Syskrack association of Grassano (MT). The latter also launched a fundraiser for the purchase of the materials necessary for the production of another 500 face shields built with materials recovered and repurposed by the makers themselves: plastic supports created with 3D printers, elastic bands, rubber supports, PVC/PET sheets, etc.

Furthermore, for the intensive care unit of the "Madonna delle Grazie di Matera" Hospital, Open Design School has produced, in partnership with local makers, a plexiglass case that reduces exposure of the health workers to contamination when carrying out intubation and other high-risk procedures on the airways of COVID-19 patients, providing an additional protection system. The idea came from a proposal put forward by Dr Francesco Zuccaro, doctor at the Matera hospital, as well as an open data and open culture enthusiast, who suggested to the ODS team the creation of an "aerosol box" designed by a Taiwanese doctor and validated in an article in "The New England Journal of Medicine" by a team of doctors from Boston who tested its protective efficacy through simulations. Following the success of this first experiment, the Open Design School team will create new cases for other hospitals in Basilicata.

Finally, Open Design School will provide support to the tailoring workshop of the Silent Academy of Il Sicomoro Co-operative, where the boys and girls of the SPRAR project and the operators have started a small-scale production of masks made with African fabrics, with the common goal of making themselves useful at such a difficult time for the whole community.

Matera 2019 is also present online.

Collective productions, collaborations between cultural inhabitants, exchanges between different artistic identities to set up important and profound co-productions: what would cultural spaces be without the visitors, spectators, listeners, participants, and mere onlookers of the planned initiatives? That's why, for about a month now, with Matera 2019 we have fully accepted the appeal of MiBACT to spread the beauty of our artistic and creative heritage online, involving and entertaining the public at home as much as possible.

We are doing this via our social media channels both by retracing the beauty of what has been in stages and by reworking in different ways the contents collected in an immense archive of images, videos and sounds, and by bringing together excellent initiatives at a national and international level, to communicate how much beauty -despite the current circumstances- is circulating thanks to the digital grapevine, narrating the amazing miracle of amazement that is taking place on the web.

Whether they are those promoted by our partners or by small and large cultural institutions, every day we have made available our virtual spaces to share beauty and wonder, putting ourselves at the service of those who right now are following us "from home", the only place from where it is possible to look at the world today. And we will do it again. Therefore we invite you to continue to follow us and to keep us company in compliance with the main rule: stay at home!

"Diary of an encouter (Diario di un incontro)" is the title of the publication, available in Italian, English and Japanese, in which we wanted to bring together all the initiatives carried out for Matera European Capital of Culture 2019 together with our partner EU-Japan Fest, a Japanese association of private companies that for 30 years has collaborated with all European Capitals of Culture to create opportunities for exchanges and shared work between Japanese and European artists.

Not just a meeting between artists, but between cultures, between populations and, ultimately, between people. The most emotive images of this meeting, which can be seen by browsing the catalogue, primarily portray the smiles and kindness of the Japanese volunteers who arrived in Matera with the Volunteers Exchange programme. Our friends have shown incredible enthusiasm in making their contribution to some important Matera 2019 projects, while at the same time finding a great welcome among the local volunteers and the Matera community.

And then there are the cultural productions, which involved many artists from Japan: the actress Ema Tashiro in the show 'Humana Vergogna', part of the project 'Poetry of Shame' co-produced by #Reteteatro41; the artist Kaori Kato in the workshops on paper and the creation of installations for 'M.E.M.O.RI. - The Euro Mediterranean Museum of Re(f)used Objects' co-produced by Luna al guinzaglio; the juggler and contortionist Hisashi Watanabe, of the Atama to Kuchi company, on stage with 'Inverted Tree' as part of the project dedicated to the contemporary circus 'Circus +'; the artist Takashi Kuribayashi, with his two artistic installations 'Entrances' and 'Cielo Capolvolto'; the multimedia artist Ryoichi Kurokawa with his audiovisual performance 'Subassemblies' for the 'In Vitro - Artificial Sonification' project co-produced by LOXOSconcept; the artist Hiroaki Umeda in the digital art and dance performance 'Intensional Particle' for the 'Quantum Danza' project; the architect Gakutoshi Kojima, who in 1974 participated in the international competition for the recovery of the Sassi stone districts, protagonist of a design workshop and a talk organised by the Open Design School.

Through the 'City Pop Up' project, Open Design School also hosted the Solar Cooking Club workshop with Japanese architects Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima of the Atelier Bow Wow studio, while for the Artistic Residencies project, thanks to the collaboration with the Basilicata Chamber of Commerce, the Japanese artist Yu Arak, who has worked with the network of companies linked to Casamatera, came to Matera. Another artistic residency was that of the 'European Eyes On Japan' project, which brought photographers from the European Capitals to Japan, observed through the shots taken by a ‘European eye’, and the 'Passport Programme', a joint programme of cultural exchanges between artists and culture experts from Basilicata and Japan.

All of the above and other content are included in this volume that we have created as a sort of diary in verse, disseminating between the pages, triplets, in homage to the tradition of Japanese haiku, written by Edoardo Delle Donne, the Basilicata author of the 'Manifesto for Matera', an emotional map in eight points from which the artist Kuribayashi obtained the verses that constituted the verbal material of his installation 'Cielo Capovolto'.

Meetings that are intended for deeper bonds and exchanges. Because a meeting is not only in the moment, it lasts over time... people to people!

Diary of an encouter (Diario di un incontro) / Catalogue

11 December 2019 and 21 February 2020. Two dates that are reference points for months of research, assembly and construction of the story of stories, that of a wonderful journey to be preserved and shown to the world. The faces, the projects, the spaces, the workshops, the exhibitions, the events, the emotions: all that has been Matera 2019 is today part of the large open window on the Google Arts & Culture platform, an immense online museum where you can retrace the extraordinary year of Matera European Capital of Culture 2019, reading about it from exclusive and emotional points of view.

Matera 2019 is the first European capital of culture to be present on the Google Arts & Culture platform, alongside the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world such as the New York MoMA, the Palace of Versailles and the Venice Biennale.
The presence of Matera 2019 on the platform developed by Google to promote and preserve online culture does not simply aim to tell the material heritage of the city, but above all to enhance the stories and processes that accompanied the 2019 initiatives.

Unlike other institutions, in fact, we worked and concentrated on the processes and stories that made this exponential global visibility in the cultural field possible. The narrations are therefore dedicated to the volunteers and citizens that were the protagonists of cultural productions, to national and international artists who have enriched the cultural offer, to large and more immersive exhibitions, to film productions, to the Cava del Sole that became a vessel for all the music of the world, to the great workshop of Matera 2019, to underground Matera (the productions hosted in the underground spaces), to the expanded city (the activities in Piccianello, in the village of La Martella, Serra Venerdì, the quarries, the Murgia, the prison, the Tre Torri Theatre), to the whole of Basilicata, which in 2019 lent itself to welcome and produce various cultural and creative processes, to the Sassi stone districts as a stage for the European capital of culture (Inhabiting the Opera, Open sound, Heritage Games, Matera Alberga, to name a few) to the great co-productions (Rai Radio3, Teatro San Carlo, Teatro delle Albe, etc.), to the murals that today colour the centre and the periphery (but not only) of the city of Matera.

After the launch of the dedicated page and the first stories, which took place in December 2019, in February 2020 the narrative process was complete, enriched with other stories and elements, of which people and places are the protagonists. Many multimedia pieces and routes mapped for the first time with Street View, with added photographic and video content, dedicated to the events of the Matera 2019 cultural programme, for a total of 519 elements accompanied by a narrative available in Italian and English, for a highly representative story of the major thematic strands of Matera 2019.

An important result therefore, the result of a great collaboration between the digital communication team of Matera 2019 and the editorial staff of Google Arts & Culture, who have approved all the proposed content, confirming both the quality of the materials and the choice of storytelling method.

2019: an extraordinary year lived intensely. But what was the perception of permanent and temporary citizens who took part in the Matera European Capital of Culture journey?

On 19 February 2020, in the Conference Room of the Basilicata Chamber of Commerce in Matera, during a meeting aimed at 'Connections and Reflections' there was a presentation of the results of a survey commissioned by the Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation and carried out by the company Datacontact, which provided useful and important food for thought and the stimulus to take on new challenges, areas for improvement and opportunities arising from the legacy left behind by this great event.

Based on a sample of almost 5000 permanent and temporary citizens, both from Italy and abroad, who were asked to complete a questionnaire either face-to-face or online, it immediately catches the eye that almost all of the interviewees now believe that Matera is a more international and well-known city, compared to the pre-candidacy phase, whilst 77.9% consider it to be more culturally vibrant. There are also important data that highlight how around 85% of citizens have taken great pride in the path taken by the city, with 87.4% and 82.5% who are now open and willing to welcome both tourists and citizens coming from other cities or countries, and those with different abilities.

Furthermore, 60% of the interviewees felt sufficiently involved as a protagonist and not only a spectator of the cultural programme, a feeling that has increased the desire to personally take part in the future, and around 70% of the respondents have stated that, thanks to the Matera Passport 2019 (the cost of which was considered by the majority as fair if not negligible compared to what was on offer), they felt more motivated to participate in the events and activities of the cultural programme. Indeed, 83.5% said that the Passport also helped to bring more spectators to the cultural events in general, broadening the horizons of the public and attracting those who did not usually attend this type of event.

Richness and variety, as well as originality, are the most suitable adjectives to describe the perception of the content proposed by the cultural programme, which corresponds to an appreciation for the enhancement of new spaces (such as Cava del Sole), the unprecedented use of some (Matera prison, for example) or the rearrangement of others (especially the museums).  The survey, in fact, shows that 85.9% of the most attended events were exhibitions, 73% were shows and performances (theatre, opera, dance) and 64.3% were concerts and events at Cava del Sole.

In addition to widespread sadness for the intense year that has just ended and that many would have liked to continue (31.7%), the most perceived feeling is that of happiness for having had such an exceptional experience (36.8%): these feelings, in fact, affect almost 60% on average of citizens who are hoping for a future in which Matera and Basilicata remain places where culture is produced and where international events are still organised. There is a hunger for shows, music and events at the Cava del Sole, a desire for exhibitions, opera and theatre, and a strong hope of even more engaging activities for young spectators.

It is also important to note that the year of Matera European Capital of Culture influenced 68.1% of the choice of the city as a holiday destination, significantly increasing the number of temporary citizens in the city.

The results of the survey on the perception of Matera, European Capital of Culture 2019

Altofest is the story of an original and provocative response to the theatre crisis. Faced with a continuous decline in audience numbers, in Naples, the intention was to deconstruct the idea of theatre space, and to strip it down to its bare bones, taking it to private homes. Thus, Altofest was born, a festival that brings the artist to the spectator's most intimate place and transforms their house into their home theatre.

This initiative subsequently gave rise to 'Altofest-Abitare Futuro', a special edition, conceived for Matera-Basilicata 2019, of this work-system that fits neatly into the socio-urban fabric. From 4 November to 8 December, for two weeks each, 29 artistic residencies involved the municipalities of Melfi, Venosa, Moliterno, Sarconi, Montalbano Jonico, Tursi, Tricarico, Grassano, Montescaglioso, Miglionico and Matera, to testify how much interest the internal areas of the region continue to hold for Matera 2019. Of these residencies, 27 took place in the private homes of Basilicata citizens and 2 in 'special venues': a pool hall and a school bus. Over 2,500 spectators had the opportunity to witness the staging of works by national and international artists, known in the most diverse fields, from dance to videomaking, from theatre to music.

The concept behind the whole festival was the exchange relationship between the host family and the artist. Citizens became 'space donors' whilst the artists edited their work based on the space in which they were living, and the interpersonal relationships established with the hosts. From this perspective, the family unit was a comparative element for the artist, allowing or denying the distortion of the space around and, sometimes, constituting as an integral part of the work.

This was not just because of hospitality but also constant dialogue, which reached its maximum potential in the open debates organised around the tenth day of the residency, on the eve of the artist's final performance/restitution. In these moments of exchange, it was highlighted how, quite unexpectedly, the residencies stimulated a common aesthetic reflection on the performances and on the act of restitution itself.

It now remains to be seen what precious heritage 'Altofest-Abitare Futuro' has created in terms of relationships and the building of communities and, above all, how not to waste their potential.

The cycle of 32 artistic residencies of the Gardentopia project, located in 26 municipalities throughout the region, has come to an end.

In total, there were 3800 participants, 2850 trees and plants put in the ground, 64 workshops and 14 redeveloped gardens. In addition, 13 patches were allocated to individual citizens and 7 to public schools, while as many as 14 performances were held (including performative installations, theatre, dance and music). There were also 4 meetings with all the Municipalities and gardens involved (the 'Green Night', as well as the 3 Gardentopia Days). The results of the project are summarised in 4 original publications and 2 films.
But beyond the figures, which report the project's success in the most direct and flattering way, it is useful to reflect on the legacy of a process like Gardentopia.

Starting from the '4 gardens' pilot that was initiated in 2016 (Agoragri, Pascoli and Giardino dei Momenti in Matera; Boschetto Orizzontale in Potenza), the aim was to replicate the experience of proactive sharing of a public asset throughout the Basilicata region. Thanks to the profile of the resident artists, the outcome exceeded all expectations, triggering a dynamic that could be summarised with the expression 'bidirectional knowledge', which refers to a continuous exchange between the citizens' own knowledge of the region and the artists' ability to create a new ideal.

Evidence of the intense work behind Gardentopia remains, leaving behind a utopia that has opened up new horizons for public spaces by experimenting with innovative practices that bring citizens together.

What appears to be clear and which, most probably, constitutes the most tangible result of the path started by Gardentopia in 2019, is that the citizens, having taken on board some spatial awareness skills, have succeeded in transforming the suggestions given to them by the artists into real practices that they have carried out independently. In this context, the central theme and consequently the project's most important legacy is participation as a constant practice of direct interaction with public heritage.

The year of Matera European Capital of Culture is coming to an end, but the special events are not over yet.

19 days, 19 hours and 19 minutes of theatrical entertainment, musical and digital dance performances, workshops organised by Samsung, exhibitions and a festival dedicated entirely to the crossover of culture and the digital world, one of the central themes of the candidacy dossier that looks to the future as a legacy of this extraordinary journey.

The Open Culture Festival includes a series of initiatives dedicated to digital culture and technological innovation, hot topics for the cultural offer of the future with interactive experiences, multimedia games, entertainment and testimonials from the most important players in the digital market.

Every day until 20 December we will be counting down to the big Open Future, Together! party, featuring famous international musicians who will perform in Cava del Sole in the presence of a welcoming and festive audience.

For more information on everything that is happening between 1 and 20 December, see the 'special countdown' schedule on Matera Events and follow Matera 2019 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

There are 32 artistic residencies that awakened the curiosity of, and continue to interest Basilicata, within the wider framework of the Gardentopia project. Individual and collective artists are embarking on a journey through the gardens, the vegetable patches and, more generally, the region's public areas to reflect, together with the citizens, on their function, trying to translate into virtuous practice the concept of an asset that is no longer just public but communal.

The artistic residencies have taken on various formats, from short workshops to longer investigations into the region's intangible heritage right up to the widespread initiative that has seen public places become areas of interest from the artists' viewpoints.

Following the residency model, workshops were held with specific targets that did not invest in the aspect of physical space. Knowledge was transferred or networked by the artist to the citizens, who, in turn, transferred their own knowledge to the artist. One example of this is Otobong Nkanga's residency at Casino Padula, in Matera, and in Pietragalla.

On the other hand, a different format was used for the residencies of Martina Muzi and Nomedas and Gediminas Urbonas, in Sasso di Castalda and Vaglio Basilicata, respectively. The residencies were longer than the previous ones, in which field research was carried out by citizens, focusing not only on the communal garden or vegetable patch, but on the entire surrounding area. The study and re-working of the physical and intangible heritages have been a means of restoring centrality to the region, leaving citizens the legacy of a constantly evolving and never completed common space.

The third, and final, model of Gardentopia residencies reflected on the transformation of public spaces. Landscape artists and architects have imagined new forms of managing shared assets and opened up discussions on the sustainability of spaces. Two examples of this approach were the residencies of Volumezero in Montemilone and Lavello and Luigi Coppola at Casino Padula in Matera.

Gardentopia's cycle of residencies is coming to an end. However, reflection on the new ways of thinking about communal spaces will certainly continue.

From 31 October to 2 November, through 15 different games, citizens of all ages had the chance to explore secret corners of the city, look for clues, solve mysteries, work together and compete, challenging other players and trying to come out on top.
The Fusion Urban Games Festival used virtual reality to inject new life into urban spaces and help participants rediscover traditional games through encounters with ghosts, porcelain dolls and strange personalities looking for gems and tails, the mystery of the death of CountTramontano, ecological tasks and urban poetry. The festival, which was produced with Plovdiv 2019, the other European Capital of Culture, was three days of pure enjoyment, and also part of a larger joint programme of activities called “Plotera weeks – Plovdiv and Matera together for an Open Future”. The games were designed by a team of game designers chosen from a public call published across Europe that rewarded projects from Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, Germany, England, Slovenia, Romania and Italy. From its first day, the Fusion Urban Game Festival's playing field included the outskirts of Matera, including Serra Venerdì, for the game dedicated to ecology called the "Clean Game" and Agna Le Piane and Casino Padula, the location of the Open Design School, where one of the two Villages dedicated to the event was set up. Here, using a special VR set, participants were able to immerse themselves in virtual reality while they hunted for the ghosts of legendary personalities with their smartphones. There were also sessions of ancient games that were unknown to digital natives. During the same period, another part of the Village was established in Piazza San Francesco, the central point from which the routes followed by some of the games started and an info point for temporary and permanent citizens alike where they could register for some of the games and find information and promotional materials on Matera's twin European Capital of Culture, Plovdiv 2019. The games on offer included "Detective among the Sassi", a fascinating game for lovers of thrillers, who had to use a series of clues to discover who was responsible for the death of Count Tramontano in 1514. There was also the "Case of the Red Lady", the "Narrative Puzzle" and the "Urban Poem", which fully involved the participants in the festival of urban games. The urban game known as "Penombra", an "international" version of the project co-produced with the "Il Vagabondo" Association, also caused excitement with its journey into a dystopian future of Matera in 2119, which was transformed, divided and under a mysterious threat.
After Matera, the festival was also held in Plovdiv from 8 to 10 November, confirmation that it was an important tool for social activation and territorial inclusion for both cities.

Stories, legends and fantastic characters returned to life in the fourth exhibition put on by I-DEA,
"The Land of Cockaigne", curated by Navine G. Khan-Dossos and James Bridle. The exhibition
was an artistic project based on Basilicata's extremely rich archival heritage, and told the story of
the role of imagination in our lives. It was opened in the hangar at Cava Paradiso on 18 October,
and bore witness to the great vivaciousness of the history that has given life to Matera and Basilicata, and how it still has a major impact on our lives today. From musical instruments built
with wood from its trees, to skins and the green screens from cinema sets, the fourth I-DEA
exhibition put the many symbols of the land and its meanings on display. From the donkey
Nicoletta, the symbol of the anti-nuclear protests in Scanzano, portrayed by Tony Vece in a
number of photographs in the exhibition, to artefacts made by citizens in papier maché workshops
under the coordination of artisan Raffaele Pentasuglia. Navine G. Khan-Dossos and James Bridle
also left a number of precious elements from the previous exhibitions-including Lionetti's
engravings and Luigi di Gianni's films- in the space, which was designed by Elisa Giuliano, Martha
Schwindling and Antonio Elettrico for the Open Design School.
Following “The Land of Cockaigne”, I-DEA will be preparing for another transitional phase from 18
November before putting on its fifth and final exhibition of 2019, "Inhabiting the Archives, Life,
Movement and Collection". This is the final stage of the project, and takes the form of an exhibition
curated by Pelin Tan and Liam Gillick. The project is based on archives selected as part of the
research carried out by the internationally renowned curator and the artist, and represents a critical
approach to modernism, in line with the history of the territory from the 1950s to today.
The “Land of Cockaigne” draws on the ancient, the living and the future. Inspired by the spirit of
Cockaigne, the curators have brought together ancient plants and modern forgeries, pre-war
documentaries and modern successes, bagpipes and satellites and science and rituals with the
aim of demonstrating the many ways in which the wealth of the present gives new life to the past.

The exhibition has been drawn from numerous different archives, from the Accademia Nazionale di
Santa Cecilia, the Archivio di Etnomusicologia, the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, the Centro di Geodesia Spaziale Giuseppe Colombo, the Archivio Domenico Notarangelo, the Archivio Luchino
Visconti, the Fondazione Gramsci, the Archivio di Stato di Matera, the Alberico Larato private
collection, the Gianfranco Lionetti private collection, the Nicola Scaldaferri private collection, the
Consorzio di Bonifica della Basilicata, e-GEOS, the Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, NASA, the
Volontari della Parrocchia B.V.M. del Carmelo, Wikimedia Commons and Titanus Film. A fountain
with a cuckoo sculpture designed and created by Francesco Mitarotonda has also been prepared
specifically for the exhibition.

Update 5 December 2019

The list of selected participants has been published.

Update 27 November 2019

The deadline to send your application has been extended to 11.59 pm of 30 November 2019. The list of selected participants will be published on the workshop website by 1 December.

We planned two different workshop activities for Matera 3019, the project that closes and reopens Matera 2019: with Teatro delle Forche, involving girls and boys, we will cross Matera envisioning the possible futures; with La Scuola Open Source and Open Design School we will work on a digital tool capable of enabling conversations to build new tomorrows.

It is an opportunity to reflect, summarize, to have a vision and understand what happened and launch proposals on the cities we crave. 

The project XYZ2019 with La Scuola Open Source includes a digital platform (website), a process of community development, networking and animation of the same, for the following purposes:

• collect, measure, systematize and enhance what was done during Matera 2019 (events, reports, contents, ideas, etc.);
• connecting all the people who participated in the activities, promoting self-organization and collaboration;
• build a digital platform that effectively enables independent cultural production.

Participation is free and open to all those interested in taking part in the process, coming from any professional / academic background.

Participants will be selected based on their own motivation and experience (formal or informal). The workshop will be held at the Open Design School; the laboratory activities are concentrated in the days between the 7th and 15th of December.

To join XYZ2019 lab you must fill in the following application form by 11.59 pm of 22 November 2019. The list of selected participants will be published on the workshop website by 22 November.

Applications require a motivational letter and a résumé (a short self-presentation with a list of your experiences). You can also attach a portfolio. To know more about the call and to send your application click here.

A new philosophy linked to gesture filled the month of September. Thanks to Virgilio Sieni's workshops, developed for the project Thauma - Atlas of Gesture, dozens of citizens have been able to rediscover, reinterpret and give new dignity to ancient gestures perceived up to now as mere complements to an action, to another goal.

The re-elaboration, slow pace and reflection have allowed those who have tried their hand in the spaces of I-DEA or in those of the Teatro Quaroni in La Martella (reopened for the occasion) the possibility of rethinking the gesture and understanding its deeper nature, through an exploration of one's most intimate self.

That was the case, with perhaps the most emotionally powerful workshop 'Agorà Mothers and Children'. A workshop that turned out, in the final performance, to be a profound sublimation of pregnancy and its final moment, birth. Letting bodies and expressions speak, six mother and child pairs explored their relationship, in its more physical, sensorial aspects, linked to that memory of the body that is sometimes drowned out by everyday life. A way to talk about oneself and tell the story of an unbreakable bond that is consolidated by taking care of the child but is rooted in the animalistic nature of procreation.

With the workshops 'Frontier Dances' and 'Officina Tattile', citizens have denied the gesture of its function to reflect on its nature. Ancient gestures, repeated for centuries and then forgotten, have rediscovered their own dignity, by disconnecting them from the work of the land. Action is thus perceived independently, leaving bodies a new awareness, "giving the gesture more weight than if it were done thoughtlessly" says one of the participants enthusiastically.

Another citizen, Vittoria, who took part in the Teatro Quaroni workshops, reveals the profound meaning of her experience with Virgilio Sieni. "Thinking of the gesture" - she affirms - "as a moment of communication, not of imitation, through an expressiveness that makes it more direct, more effective - in some ways unfiltered".

Between art and dance, the third I-DEA Thauma - Atlas of Gesture exhibition, from 13 September to 7 October, was a heartfelt search for lost gestures. A journey that started from the study and exploration of materials from the archives of Basilicata and other Italian regions to create another archive of the gesture through exhibitions, installations, practices, choreographic actions, performances and special projects. Virgilio Sieni, former director of the Venice Biennial Dance Sector from 2013 to 2016, is one of the most iconic dancers and choreographers on the European scene, and he was the curator behind this extraordinary exhibition for the first time. In Cava Paradiso, Thauma -Atlas of Gesture hosted a series of tables on the exploration of the body in search of the disappeared gestures that contained drawings, photographs, annotations, sequences,objects, videos and maps. A real atlas of gestures was enriched every day with research materials in the field, becoming a study platform and a permanent research and creation workshop, in a participatory process that actively involved citizens. The set-up, the pulsating and living body of the project in constant evolution, has retained some elements of Studio Formafantasma's previous exhibition, as always happens in the transition from one exhibition to another within the I-DEA project. A rich programme of performances, actions and practices on the gesture accompanied the exhibition throughout the month of September. On the occasion of the inauguration on 12 September, we attended 'Domestic Dances' accompanied by live music performed by Roberto Cecchetto on guitar: dances created with some citizens previously met in their homes by Virgilio Sieni and his team, who collected gestures and objects to transform them into choreographic installations created starting from ritual gestures and recovered objects.
From 11 to 16 September there was a Workshop to build wooden sprites and elves for children between 6 and 11 years old, conducted by Viola Tortoli Bartoli, and inspired by the tradition of characters from Lucan folklore. The programme of choreographed actions continued on 13 September with the 'Dances toward off the evil eye', which the Compagnia Virgilio Sieni (with live music performed by Michele Rabbia on percussion) presented as installations on tuff pedestals, on 15 September with Agorà Mothers and Children, duo dances performed by mothers and their children, the result of a creative process carried out with Sieni, and live music by Roberto Cecchetto on guitar, on 19 and 22 September with the Frontier Dances, on the disappeared gestures, interpreted by citizens and born of a process of immersion in the nature of the gesture. Between 23 and 28 September, Officina Tattile breathed new life into the Quaroni Theatre in Borgo La Martella, the space designed by Ludovico Quaroni at the request of Adriano Olivetti for the great utopian urban intervention conducted in the 1950s by the entrepreneur, who brought together architecture, enterprise and attention to the community.
Performances, workshops and dialogues alternated in this wonderful space given back to the whole community for a week. The programme was completed, still within the Theatre and the Spazio Tattile workshops, in collaboration with the visually impaired dancer Giuseppe Comuniello (with whom they will also produce the short work Blind Dance), with the performance 'In front of the eyes of others' with Virgilio Sieni. Finally, on 28 September there was the 'Communal Dance', where Sieni led a final collective dance open to all, citizens, dancers and performers of all ages and
backgrounds, created on the spot basic instructions on the simple gestures that form us as individuals: a sequence of movements freely performed according to one's abilities, creating a series of repetitions. A project accompanied by musicians Spartaco Cortesi and Naomi Berrill. The I-DEA space for 'Thauma - Atlas of Gesture' is in transition and will gradually be transformed into 'The Land of Cockaigne' curated by Navine G. Khan-Dossos and James Bridle, the fourth exhibition that will open on 18 October and will remain open until 18 November.

Thauma - Atlas of Gesture was an unprecedented search for postures, for physical but also emotional resonances of the people put into dialogue with the images recovered from the historical archives of Basilicata.

Update 3 October 2019

The results of the Call for Artists are available online. 

Are you a game designer? Would you like to present your game or your workshop for the first edition of Fusion - Urban games festival?

This open call, published jointly by Matera 2019 and Plovdiv 2019, is the right occasion to present your game or your workshop and apply to participate in the first edition of Fusion - Urban games festival! During two weekends (25-27 October 2019 in Plovdiv, and 31 October - 2 November 2019 in Matera) we will explore crowded streets and forgotten corners, blooming parks and concrete jungles, steep hills and mysterious undergrounds. With combined forces of local experts (citizens of Plovdiv and Matera) and urban game designers from all around the world, we will create fusion and try to discover again and rethink urban spaces in two cities. Games make it as easy to test different ways of designing the city, solving social problems, living together, being together close or distanced. Games are a tool to help us understand complex systems that make up our everyday life: they are to be treated as a new form of being together, of communicating and of self-experience. 

For Matera and Plovdiv, the European Capital of Culture 2019 games and, in this case, urban games have always been considered as important tools of social activation, of territorial inclusion and as sustainable ways of creating a network virtuous citizens. In pursuit of the objectives envisaged by the Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation Dossier and the Plovdiv 2019 Foundation, they intend to co-produce the FUSION Urban Games Festival, with the aim of enhancing the territories through the rediscovery and revelation of the city dimensions and criteria for the proposal of a stable network of permanent and temporary citizens interested in active participation in civil life.

Before submiting your application please read all the information you will find in the dedicated section under Transparent Administration. Click here to apply.

If you have any further question, please write at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Application deadline: 22 September 2019, at 23:59.

A great procession as a form of art has united the inland areas of the South of Italy in an embrace. Over the course of ten days, Trenodia, the public art project created by Mariangela and Vinicio Capossela, crossed the inland areas of Calabria, Campania and Basilicata between 20 and 30 August, involving citizens and artists in a procession of tears towards what is at mortal risk in our world. The "first fire", which left from Isola Capo Rizzuto in Calabria, was the "Factory of the Black", a performance of fabric dyeing, musical laments and civil orations preceded by the proclamation of the Calabrian municipality as a European Capital of Culture for One Day. The experiment was inspired by the Ministry of Cultural Assets, in order to take the original experience carried out by Lucanian municipalities in Basilicata outside the borders of Lucania. 

Trenodia’s next stage was in Alta Irpinia, on the occasion of the Sponz Fest in Calitri, an annual event that was held there for the seventh consecutive year under the artistic direction of Vinicio Capossela. Here, too, the municipality was awarded the title of European Capital of Culture for One Day. Still in Irpinia, the event moved on from Calitri to Cairano and Lacedonia. The dates in Basilicata were the 27th in Tricarico, the home town of Rocco Scotellaro and Antonio Infantino, with civil orations by Pietro Laureano and Vinicio Capossela, and Thursday 29th in Matera, where the afternoon funeral procession left from Rione Piccianello for Cava del Sole, where Vinicio Capossela's final concert brought this extraordinary journey to a conclusion. A special concert, an unprecedented hymn to black, the colour of fertility and shadows, as well as the South, mourning and shelter. With Trenodia we rediscovered a dreamlike world which has its roots deep in the popular tradition of the entire South.

Trenodia was conceived and directed by Mariangela and Vinicio Capossela and produced by Matera 2019 with Sponzfest Sottaterra 2019, the annual festival directed by Capossela in Alta Irpinia.

photo credits: Giuseppe Di Maio 

The three days between 13 and 15 September see the return of Materadio, the ninth edition of Radio 3's festival in the European Capital of Culture!

Matera has been on a long journey with Rai Radio 3, with not-to-be-missed appointments with original productions and great names from the world of music, theatre and Italian and international cinema. This year, Materadio was based on an important topic, "The Souths", using different moments during the festival to discuss a part of the world that has been defined both by its geography and by a historical dialectic of critical moments and opportunities.

There will be a preview of Materadio with the great Italian singer Teresa De Sio de Sio on 12 September at the "Essenza Lucano" space in Pisticci Scalo*, a magical location where the ties between Basilicata and Amaro Lucano, the Essential Partner of Matera 2019, can be fully understood.

The curtain officially rises on Materadio in the Gervasio Auditorium in Piazza Sedile at 4:00 p.m. on Friday 13 September, with a major tribute to Andrea Camilleri through the words of Roberto Nobile and Mimmo Cuticchio. During the festival, cultural radio programmes such as Fahrenheit, Radio3 Scienza, Tutta la Città ne Parla and Radio3 Mondo will be broadcast from the Gervasio Auditorium of the Conservatory in Piazza Sedile. The stage for the theatrical and musical events (Teresa De Sio, Filo Rosso and many others) will be set up in Piazza San Francesco, and a series of conferences, encounters and presentations will take place in the space set up by the Open Design School. The major evening concerts will be held at Cava del Sole, with numerous special guests, including the great saxophonist Jan Garbarek and his quartet and Trilok Gurtu , who will be performing a brand-new production created with Gezziamoci, the festival organised by the Onyx Jazz Club of Matera on 13 September. On 14 September, the "La Notte della Taranta" Popular Orchestra will be taking the stage at Cava del Sole. The orchestra, which is conducted by Maestro Daniele Durante, is made up of pizzica and popular music musicians from all over the Salento. There will be no lack of surprises during the evening, with international guests performing.

This year, the final moments, when goodbyes are said to the city of Matera and this edition of Materadio, will include a symbolic passing of the torch from Matera 2019 to Galway 2020, the Irish city that, with the Croatian city of Rijeka, will be the next European Capital of Culture. The only artists who could mark this bridge between Basilicata and Ireland are the Modena City Ramblers, the Italian group that has most successfully expressed a relationship of sounds, ideas, faces and struggles, with an incendiary live set including their successes from the band’s 25 year history, to which we must add three of the most important artists in this genre, straight from Traidphicnic, the major festival of traditional Irish music that takes place in Galway every year: Gearóid Ó Murchú, Ruairi Liam Mac Con Iomaire and Rebecca Ní Éallaithe. The most highly-anticipated guests this year also include the astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, the first Italian woman to be a member of the European Space Agency’s crews, who will tell the story of her experience among the stars exactly fifty years after the first moon landing.

The programme for this edition of Materadio is a way for us to understand the Souths by offering ideas, voices and sounds that will help comprehend the extraordinary complexity of this part of the world.

Discover the full programme on Matera Events here!

* Essenza Lucano can be reached via a shuttle service from Matera. It costs €5, and leaves from Piazza Matteotti at 7:30 p.m., returning at 10:30 p.m. For information and reservations, please contact Ridola Viaggi, Via Domenico Ridola, 54 (MT) | 0835/314233 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. www.ridolaviaggi.it

The story told by the citizens who took part in the staging of the prologue to Cavalleria Rusticana, directed by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, was a reappropriation, and in some ways a reconciliation. The travelling performance at the Sassi, a modern version of the Seven Deadly Sins viewed from a "Capitalist" standpoint was an integral part of the "Inhabiting the Opera" project, accompanying audiences towards Pietro Mascagni's work, which was performed in Piazza San Pietro Caveoso by the Orchestra of the San Carlo Theatre of Naples.

It was a unique experiment uniting people from very different contexts who came together to form a company that enlivened the ancient streets, which were not just a splendid backdrop but an essential component of the performance. Citizens and professional artists joined together to bring one of the most important productions of the year as European Capital of Culture to life.

Reappropriation was achieved in part through the Sassi. The citizens who made up the chorus that backed up the scenes acted by the artists sang traditional songs from the city and the entire region. On one condition, however, that was very clear from the outset: the choir’s purpose was not to search for a pure dialect that is sometimes claimed to be the mother tongue, only to be humiliated through usages that only seek self-satisfaction. The raison d'être of popular songs was to communicate a universal message that transcended a kind of localism of identity. Singing these songs today in the same streets where they had resounded thousands of times with a different sort of awareness was the challenge faced by the citizens who took part in Inhabiting the Opera, a challenge they can be said to have met. 

The same can also be said of the artists – some of whom were originally from Matera – who told of a kind of reconciliation. It is a phenomenon that enables you to make peace with yourself and your land after you have left it and only return to it and take it in hand when you are an adult.
It is in this sequence of intimate, profound feelings that inspired those who took part in this unique experience that the unusual strength of Inhabiting the Opera can be found.

Milo Rau either answers the e-mails he receives immediately or not at all. It was from this story that the collaboration between the Swiss director and the Consorzio Teatri Uniti di Basilicata on Tòpoi. Teatri e nuovi miti was born: with a simple e-mail in which the Consortium suggested a collaboration with Rau on a project for the European Capital of Culture.

Milo Rau is fascinated by the ancient calmness of the city of Matera, and has decided to shoot a film about Jesus here, in the land that formed the backdrop for Pasolini's "Gospel According to Saint Matthew" and Mel Gibson's "The Passion". What would the prophet preach if he were to return in the 21st century? Where would he go, and whom would he choose to be his apostles? These questions form the basis for "The New Gospel", an interdisciplinary project in which the director will once again use theatre and cinema to talk about human injustice.

During his first field trip to this Southern Italy on the border with Europe, Milo Rau and his team travelled around the various "ghettos", the camps where migrants who pick oranges and tomatoes live in inhuman conditions. This is the true story "The New Gospel" will tell: Jesus himself was a revolutionary who worked as a carpenter on the great construction sites of the Roman Empire. His rejection of the global system of exploitation of his time, and the combination of revolutionary commitment (only subversive people were crucified at the time) and the search for a new form of solidarity were the director's inspiration.

Returning to the roots of the Gospel and presenting it as the passion of an entire civilization, the cast of refugees and small farmers driven to bankruptcy by the agri-industry will rewrite the manifesto of solidarity with the poorest people, a performative uprising for a more equal and more human world. As in Christ's Palestine, a place inhabited by people without a land, migrants in Europe today will be the first to be considered as the new apostles.

One fundamental event of the research stage was the encounter with Yvan Sagnet, who helped the troupe understand how the ghettos and gang-masters work, and why they exist. Yvan is a Cameroonian who arrived in Italy in 2007 to study Telecommunications Engineering at the Turin Polytechnic University. Following a poor result in an examination, he lost his scholarship, and in 2011 went to work as a tomato picker in Nardò, in Salento, for Masseria Boncuri. After coming into contact with the gang-masters system, which recruits tomato workers illegally and exploits them, Yvan became the spokesperson for a month-long strike against the inhuman working conditions, which led to reforms and the first trial on enslavement in Europe.

Yvan will play the new Messiah. His experience will be a precious aid for understanding what happens in those non-places that are part of a highly-developed global system, of which tomato picking is just the tip of the iceberg.

Who will follow him? Just as in the Gospel, it is Yvan, who plays Jesus, who seeks disciples in Italy's largest refugee camps with whom he can carry out his "Revolt of Dignity". During their visit, the troupe came across an unexpected truth that newspaper investigations will never be able to describe properly. As in a utopian documentary, this truth will be filmed, and will become part of the final story, in a contrast between biblical scenes (the first part of the film follows the story in the Bible exactly) and the making of the firm.

Alongside the men the troupe met in the camps will be professional actors like Enrique Irazoqui, Pasolini's legendary Jesus, who will play John the Baptist, and Maia Morgenstern, who played the Madonna in Mel Gibson's The Passion, who plays the mother of the black saviour Sagnet.

With Matera 2019, the search continues for temporary citizens to take part in the filming and be members of the cast. On 21, 22 and 26 August, amateur actors and anyone else who may be interested in taking part in the production of this extraordinary project will be able to participate in the casting for the selection of a number of key figures, including Pontius Pilate, Barabbas, the Pharisees and Roman soldiers. No particular experience is required, but there must be an interest in or a particular tie to the character applicants wish to play. When confirming participation, it is important to take account of the dates in which applicants are available for filming, and participants must send an e-mail giving the reasons why they would like to play the role they have selected to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

At the end of September and beginning of October, Matera will first prepare with the filming of the entry to Jerusalem, followed by the Passion and the Crucifixion of Christ, who will preach his Sermon on the Mount and will be tortured and crucified, to be finally resurrected before the eyes of hundreds of tourists. The production will be open, in line with the beliefs of Milo Rau, for whom the theatre is not a product but a process to which the general public must have access.

Photo Credits: Yvan Sagnet and his disciples Jeremiah Akhere Ogbeide, Papa Latyr Faye, Mbaye Ndiaye and Anthony Nwa-chukwu on the beach. (©2019 Fruitmarket/Langfilm. Photo Thomas Eirich-Schneider)

"The Revolt of Dignity" and "The New Gospel" by Milo Rau are part of the Matera 2019 project "Tòpoi. Teatro e nuovi miti“,  and are an interdisciplinary production including a campaign, a performance and a film.

The campaign is organised by IIPM (the International Institute of Political Murder) in collaboration with Associazione No Cap - Contro ogni forma di caporalato, the Comitato dei Braccianti della Felandina, Ghetto Out Casa Sankara, Spin Time Lab Roma, the Osservatorio Migranti Basilicata, Agricola Leggera, Campo Libero, Altragricoltura – Confederazione per la Sovranità Alimentare, UILA Taranto – Unione Italiana lavoratori agro alimentari with the participation of European Alternatives, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), Medico International and FUTURZWEI – Stiftung Zukunftsfähigkeit.

The performance is a co-production between IIPM (the International Institute of Political Murder), and the Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation, Teatro di Roma and NTGent, in collaboration with Teatri Uniti di Basilicata, Fruitmarket and Langfilm, and with the participation of ProLoco Ginosa and the Universität für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna. 

The cinema project is a Fruitmarket and Langfilm production, co-produced by SRF SSR and ZDF, in collaboration with Arte, IIPM (the International Institute of Political Murder), the Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation, the Consorzio Teatri Uniti di Basilicata and Teatro di Roma , with support from Kulturstiftung des Bundes, the European Cultural Foundation, Filmund Medienstiftung NRW, the Office of Culture (FOC), Zürcher Filmstiftung, DFFF - Deutscher Filmförderfonds, Kanton St.Gallen Kulturförderung / Swisslos, BKM - Die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, Volkart Stiftung, GEA – Waldviertler, Stadt Lausanne und Kanton Waadt and the Fondo Etico di BCC Basilicata.

The workshop “Tactile Space” will be led by Virgilio Sieni and Giuseppe Comuniello, a blind dancer, and is part of the project Tauma Atlante del Gesto, research carried out by Virgilio Sieni within the program I-DEA and produced by Matera 2019.

The workshop will be held in the Teatro Quaroni at La Martella (Matera) and is open to dancers, performers and actors (over 18 years old) who want to develop the theme of tactile space, which means exploring the relationship between men and the environment as a mean towards inclusion.

The workshop will be held from the 23rd to the 27th of September 2019 every day from 3pm to 5pm.

Every applicant will need to email a copy of their CV to the address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and fill in the following form.

It will be possible to apply until Tuesday September 10th, the decisions of the choreographer will be communicated in the following days.

Workshop Description:

The workshop “Tactile Space” will be led by Virgilio Sieni and Giuseppe Comuniello, a blind dancer, and is open to dancers, performers and actors (over 18 years old) who want to develop the theme of tactile space, which means exploring the relationship between men and the environment as a mean towards inclusion. Through the workshop a variety of themes will be explored, and participants will learn how empathy developed through gestures and closeness can transform our relationship with others and our surroundings. Openness and inclusion will be the main focus of the workshop, deriving directly from the research on tactiles spaces. 

Jova Beach Party, one of the best shows of summer 2019 will stop in Basilicata on the beach of Policoro, in the locality Torre Mozza. 

A great show with the most popular songs of Jovanotti, some of the most famous Italian hits. 

If you already have your ticket for this event, you are allowed to come to our *infopoints and to buy the Matera 2019 passport for only 12 euros instead of 19 euros, the all-in-one ticket that includes unlimited access to all the official events of Matera European Capital Of Culture 2019 throughout the entire year. 

* Matera 2019 infopoints

Matera | Via Lucana 125-127 

Matera | Museo Nazionale d'arte medievale e moderna della Basilicata di Palazzo Lanfranchi

Metaponto | Museo Archeologico Nazionale 

One of the most intense moments of the Matera 2019 cultural programme was performed between 31 July and 3 August: Abitare l’Opera (Inhabiting the Opera), a major cultural production produced with one of the oldest theatres in the world, the San Carlo Theatre of Naples. Bringing opera to the great natural stage of the Sassi on a walkway in the middle of the audience, which brought it into direct contact with the action on stage, proved to be a great success with the public, and a winning gamble.

Over a thousand spectators applauded "Cavalleria Rusticana” in a Piazza San Pietro Caveoso that had been transformed into a stage, using the façade of the Church of Santa Maria di Idris for the spectacular video projections. The event was broadcast live on Rai5 on Saturday 3 August, directed by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, with orchestra and choir conducted by Juraj Valcuha and a cast including Veronica Simeoni, Roberto Aronica and George Gagnidze. 

The prologue to "The Seven Capital(ist) Sins”, which denounces excesses in liberalism, involved dividing citizens into stations. At each station, a choir of citizens sang popular songs associated with the various sins – pride, sloth, lust, wrath, gluttony, envy and greed – with the extraordinary scenery of the Sassi at sunset creating a theatrical setting.

The long, evocative pathways were characterised by modernity and tradition, recounting the weaknesses of humanity in performances, followed by two large masks set opposite each other – good and evil, which often represent both sides of the same coin in our everyday lives.

Greeted with applause and standing ovations, the performances of Abitare (Inhabiting) offered its audiences an extraordinary immersive experience. “Cavalleria Rusticana” was broadcast on television throughout Switzerland, and Arte also broadcast the event in Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, the Principality of Monaco and French-speaking countries across the ocean. From the middle of August, the opera will be presented in Japan, Hungary, Slovenia and Greece. Between 2019 and 2020, “Cavalleria Rusticana” will be distributed to cinemas in Europe, Korea, the United States and Latin America. It will be available on DVD from Spring 2020.

The "Matera Seen from the Moon" festival, which took place from 15 to 24 July, comprised a rich programme, including world premieres, concerts, urban design, book presentations and film screenings to recall the first man on the moon and Rocco Petrone, the great Lucanian who guided the Apollo 11 mission.

The festival included 10 days of performances accompanied by lunar installations in the streets of the city centre and major concerts at Cava del Sole.

The festival programme was previewed at Cava Paradiso at 6:30 pm on Monday 15 July with “Nanogagliato Festival meets Matera 2019”, at which scientists from the Academy led by Mauro Ferrari discussed the worlds of science, nanotechnology and space with the audience. The occasion offered the opportunity for a guided visit to Studio Formafantasma's “Visione Unica” exhibition, part of the I-DEA project.

On the morning of 16 July, the Giardino dei MOMenti in Piazza Semeria hosted a series of Lunar Experiments, a workshop for young scientists from the Gagliato Nanoscienze Junior Academy, where the very young carried out a series of experiments, from the phases of the moon to the role of nanoscience in space. In the afternoon, Sasso di Castalda, Capital for One Day, put on a rich programme dedicated to Rocco Petrone, one of the most famous citizens in the history of this extraordinary Lucanian village.

At 6:00 pm on Wednesday 17 July there was a meeting in Piazzetta della Cittadinanza Attiva with the poet and author Davide Rondoni on the occasion of the presentation of his latest book "'And like the Wind. The Infinite, the strange kiss of the poet in the world" 200 years after Giacomo Leopardi's work.

Terrazza Lanfranchi formed the backdrop to a screening of "Italian Moon. Rocco Petrone and the Voyage of Apollo 11". 50 years after the moon landing, it is a documentary produced by the Istituto Luce-Cinecittà for A&E Networks Italia, sponsored by the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (Italian Space Agency) in collaboration with NASA, and directed by Marco Spagnoli. The evening began with the presentation of a new edition of the book "From the Earth to the Moon" by Renato Cantore dedicated to Rocco Petrone, an extraordinary story combining emigration and the American dream.

At Cava del Sole on Thursday 18 July, the multimedia performance "Apollo Soundtrack" was Matera’s celebration of scientific progress in space exploration 50 years after this extraordinary event. The highlight of the evening was a performance of a multimedia show written by Brian Eno, Roger Eno and Daniel Lanois, which was played for the first time outside the United Kingdom by the British band Icebreaker, with B.J. Cole and Roger Eno and special guest Gyda Valtysdottir, the Icelandic cellist. In the splendid open-air area of Cava del Sole, the audience experienced the emotion and mystery of the Apollo 11 mission in a synaesthesia between visual stimulation and spatial sound. The performance included blow-ups of NASA images from the day that marked the beginning of a new era, as well as content provided by Leonardo, the exclusive sponsor of the event, and images of the Earth taken from space.

On 18 July, the children's book "DI LUNA IN LUNA. STORIE DI UN’ESPLORAZIONE CHE É APPENA INIZIATA (FROM MOON TO MOON: The history of an exploration that has only just begun)" by Stefano Sandrelli, published by Feltrinelli, was presented at the Ipogei di San Francesco.

Two events were on the schedule for 19 July. In the afternoon, "COSTELLAZIONE. IL CIELO IN UNA STANZA (CONSTELLATION. THE SKY IN A ROOM)" opened in collaboration with the Brera-Milano Academy of Fine Arts. This collective, unitary, permanent real-virtual work of art, which started life at ExpoMilano2015, was shown at Matera 2019 in the Giardino dell’Angelo, in the heart of the Sassi. The evening saw the Matera leg of Subsonica's "8 Tour" at Cava del Sole, a mixture of spatial and electronic music that has been amazing audiences across Italy for over twenty years. It was a special evening that sent the Cava del Sole audience into a frenzy!

On 20 July, the "Matera Seen from the Moon" festival also presented some of the projects that were a part of the lengthy process of co-creation with cultural bodies from the area to put the Matera 2019 programme together. They included “The Sound of the Spirit”, co-produced by Matera 2019, Ateneo Musica Basilicata with its Suoni di Pietra – MaterArmoniae project and Lams Matera with Voices of the Spirit | Suoni dai mondi paralleli alle caverne, which were developed in two separate stages. There was a homage to the spiritual side of vocal skills through a kaleidoscopic view of different cultures, touching on Syria and Russia, thanks to the presence of artists of the calibre of the Mirna Kassis Ensemble, Sajncho Namčylak & Actores Alidos, Caterina Pontrandolfo and Nina Nikolina, the Bulgarian artist who attended with the collaboration of Plovdiv 2019, the other 2019 European Capital of Culture, with a concert entitled "Animus Mundi".

This was followed by the world premiere performance of the "Missa Vox Dei", which had been composed for the occasion by Maestro Nicola Campogrande. It was played by the Orchestra di Matera e della Basilicata and the Orchestra Filarmonica Federiciana accompanied by the Coro Giovanile Italiano Feniarco and the Coro ABaCo from Potenza (Coro Polifonico Melos), the Coro Irsina (Coro Angelo Candela) and the Coro Tricarico (Coroeuterpe). Campogrande's God is an angry God who responds to human prayer and intervenes in a Mass in a hard, thundering voice. The Maestro included an instrumental section – the Vox Dei – in the traditional structure that evokes divine turmoil, and even indignation, but it concludes with an Amen with a sweet yet decisive human response.

A rainbow parade invaded the streets of the European Capital of Culture in the afternoon with the historic first city Pride, the Matera Heroes Pride. The celebrations for the first 50 years since the first Stonewall movements, which opened the way to global demonstrations demanding equal rights for LGBT persons were combined with those for the 50th anniversary of the first conquest of the moon through the wonderful feeling that unites them.

With its ties to the ideas of a journey as an opportunity for new knowledge and discoveries, the travelling theatre event "Aware. The Enchanted Ship" arrived in the space opposite the La Martella railway station after crossing Basilicata with a variety of stopovers for performances in the region. The project was co-produced by the Gommalacca Teatro theatre company and Matera 2019.

Guided visits to the “Visione Unica” exhibition by Studio Formafantasma, part of the I-DEA project, were held at Cava Paradiso on 22 July, followed by a screening of the film MOON by Duncan Jones (2009) in the evocative setting of the Jazzo Gattini Visitors' Centre.

The "Matera Seen from the Moon" programme closed on 24 July with a grand concert of symphonic music in the Cava del Sole, in which the Rai National Symphonic Orchestra conducted by James Conlon played a programme entitled "Sinfonia per l’Europa (Symphony for Europe)" in a concert beneath the stars and the moon to close an intense week of events with fine music.

The "Matera Seen from the Moon" festival was organised by Matera 2019 in collaboration with the Polo Museale della Basilicata and the Municipality of Matera.

After two months, the travelling museum of fragments, traces and small re(f)used objects collected for the M.E.M.O.RI. project, and co-produced by La Luna al Guinzaglio, has closed its doors.

The museum developed out of a journey through Europe and the Mediterranean in search of souvenirs and handmade objects, stopping off in the five port cities of Genoa, Malaga, Marseille, Tetouan and Tunis and within the borders of Lucania in Bernalda, Matera, Muro Lucano, Potenza and Venosa. As the various places were visited, the purpose of the study changed, as did the very sense of souvenirs, leading to a transformation from typical to topical objects.

What are re-fused objects? They may be bottle caps, plane tickets, packaging, pieces of paper or objects found by chance in a pocket or in the street. The Museo Euro-Mediterraneo dell'Oggetto RI-fiutato's collection exhibits object that have not been rejected because of what they are but because they are "sensed again". They are objects we dispose of automatically, and often unreasonably: they are objects that can have a new life.

M.E.M.O.RI. is a pop museum, a popular museum that might be put together by anybody, because it is made up of small things, trivial objects that are a result of chance encounters: fragments of stone, thread and fabric reinterpreted through kaleidoscopes, handles and magnifying glasses.

From 3 May to 7 July, in the setting of the Chiesa Rupestre Santa Maria de Armenis, which reopened its doors after years of being closed so that it could host elements of the Matera 2019 cultural programme, all these objects, reworked as a sign of respect for the memories they carry with them and as a gesture towards saving the planet and ourselves, were on show. The magic of M.E.M.O.RI. lies in telling the story of these discarded objects and encountering them interactively. Visitors are invited to undertake a "manu-mission", using their hands as a way of establishing a direct contact with the found objects and accessing their internal memories.

In the 30 days it was open, M.E.M.O.RI. was visited by some 1,300 temporary citizens from Italy and abroad, above all from schools, universities, associations, foundations and summer camps, involving adults and children, educators, teachers, members of associations and disabled persons.

The collection is divided into an "Anarchivio" and five sections called Stanze, spaces where people are invited to stay, give themselves time, slow down and explore. The Anarchivio is an unusual kind of archive that conserves the memory of the objects on display and the research methods used in the investigation process through a collection of documents and testimonies. The Stanza dei Segni is a room for hands that touch lightly, squeeze and immerse themselves as ambassadors for our bodies, which as they touch, leave a sign or a feeling, and enshrine their movement. The Stanza dei Frammenti is a space of fragility and small things, in which things speak as remnants and details rather than as complete objects. The Stanza delle Cadute is where the humblest of remnants collected from floors while passing through artisans' workshops can be found; it is where things that fall and are lost can talk: shavings, threads, leftovers from a manufacturing process or buttons. In the Stanza delle Ripetizioni, the collection of remnants celebrates cycles, returning, circularity and the forms of materials. The final room, the Stanza delle Chimere, which opened on 27 May, was inspired by artistic elements on the universe of myths suggested by the Japanese artist Kaori Kato. It is a space in which we move towards the future, riding ideas that have their roots in the past – objects, artefacts and tools – where visitors become a part of the same creature, and components of the same structure.

Each room presents a loaned work that is tied to a Spontaneous Museum, a wide-ranging online network of museums opened in various places by citizens, individuals and associations. They are M.E.M.O.RI.’s external sections. Using a real museum protocol as regards their preparation and inauguration, they are opened in other locations by anyone who wants to turn their own private collection into an exhibition, a narration or a place of hospitality: there is one in Potenza in the home of an artist, one in Genoa in a tai chi gym and one at the Liceo Artistico in Matera, and there are others elsewhere in Europe. By using the MemorAbilia app, which was designed especially for the project, more can be discovered about the loaned work, what it was, who has it and its dimension in the Mediterranean area. The app, which can be downloaded on to both Android and iOS smartphones, enriches the use of M.E.M.O.RI. with an audio guide in English and Italian, scientific information, 3D animations and stories in rhyme.

A long series of events and appointments preceded, supplemented and enriched the exhibition dimension of the M.E.M.O.RI. museum, to encourage new reflections on the Mediterranean, relations, languages and art. Guests of the workshops include the founder of the Museo Tolomeo, Fabio Fornasari, the anthropologist and journalist Duccio Canestrini, the fantasiologist Massimo Gerardo Carrese, the photo journalist Antonio Politano, the artists Kaori Kato, Hassan Echair and Farah Khelil, the curator Maria Rosa Sossai, Fabio Bonelli and the author Gianluca Caporaso.

Now that the exhibition in Matera has closed, the M.E.M.O.RI. collection will be on the move again, first to Potenza, then to the Genoa Science Festival, and then on to Bologna, Antwerp and Malaga. Who can tell? I may be enhanced by more objects to re-sense, rework and protect.

Contemporary art enters the heart of Basilicata with the Gardentopia Day #2 community gardens tour, a large-scale project that promotes green culture and active citizenship thanks to new synergies between citizens and artists.
An opportunity to bring together the citizens who work to manage these urban green spaces and for them to participate in the artistic and social interventions that are created here by artists from all over the world, selected by the curator of the Gardentopia project, Pelin Tan.
Between food, cultivation and philosophy, the day's programme started in Matera, where at 9.00 two buses departed with more than 100 citizens, to start a Gardentopia tour between the municipalities of Basilicata, covering two different routes.The first section included a first morning stop at the Irsina community garden where the public participated in the ‘Community Radio’ artistic intervention with the Radio Instabile performance from the artists Futurefarmers and Maria Pecchioli who worked with the local inhabitants, plants and one another to collectively imagine a new ‘tale of wonder’. The story was transmitted locally via radio and through a series of seed-shaped speakers, migrating from hand to hand throughout the area. The second stage went through the community garden of Campomaggiore where at noon there was a community picnic with music from Pu.Ba.La selectors and made even more tasty by the infusions of the mobile tea house. In parallel, the second section included a first stop at the Metaponto community garden with the Epicurean garden performance from the Greek collective Errands, composed of architects, visual artists and sociologists. The group has created an epicurean garden according to the life models of the Greek philosopher Epicurus. The second stop at the community garden of Stigliano was the site for the community picnic with entertainment from Euroband, La Murgia's street band. At 19.00, all the buses then found themselves in the community garden of Castelsaraceno for the ‘Community Dinner’, accompanied by two different activities: the performance by the Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, known for creating social relations in the artistic spaces and widely recognised as one of the most influential artists in socially engaged art; and a talk by the philosopher Nicola Perullo.
The Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija ended Gardentopia Day #2 with a lively cooking performance and installation in the garden, cooking with local and Thai ingredients at the NaturalMensa of Castelsaraceno, an eco-sustainable canteen with an experimental lunch service based on organic products.

With the beginning of spring the first Gardentopia Day transformed the gardens of Matera into community places. This marks the start of the second phase of a large-scale project that promotes green culture and active citizenship, also thanks to new collaborations between citizens and artists. The sociologist and historian of Turkish art, Pelin Tan, will be in charge of the development of the project during 2019. The first Gardentopia Day opened in the morning with the creation of the new community garden at Casino Padula, home of the Open Design School in Matera, thanks to the involvement of students and teachers from the IC Padre Semeria school, Don Milano campus, Briganti Agricultural Institute and C. Levi School of Arts. The students were the protagonists of the performance of ‘Evolutionary Garden - 100 trees for Gardentopia’ by the artist Luigi Coppola, activist and promoter of public art projects. With this inauguration, planting began of the first of the 100 trees of many varieties of berries destined for the public gardens of the Basilicata network. In the afternoon the trees were handed over to the representatives of the 22 municipalities of Basilicata that joined the project by responding to Matera 2019’s call to all of Basilicata in collaboration with the regional ANCI, namely Bernalda, Stigliano, Salandra, Oliveto Lucano, Campomaggiore, Pietrapertosa, Irsina, Palazzo San Gervasio, Vaglio di Basilicata, Pietragalla, Montemilone, Lavello, Maschito, Barile, Rionero in Vulture, Rapone, Muro Lucano, Vietri di Potenza, Sasso di Castalda, Chiaromonte, San Costantino Albanese, Castelsaraceno, as well as Matera and Potenza. Planting these trees in community gardens was a symbolic act to start a network across the region facilitated by the presence of artists who will use art as a tool to engage the community. The ‘Evolutionary Garden’ project illustrated by the artist Coppola works on the theme of biodiversity overcoming the idea of ​​monoculture just as thanks to agriculture, plants that have arrived from the most diverse places have become plants that we today consider as ours, having accepted them and integrated them into our territory. A rickshaw and electric bike tour amongst the three community gardens of the city of Matera, each featuring entertainment for the public, livened up the afternoon of Gardentopia Day 1. The Garden of Moments in the Lanera district, managed by the MOM Association - Materan Mothers at Work, hosted the magic show by the Association ‘Lacaposciuc ASD’. At Agoragri there was food design with Cozinha Nomade while in Pascoli, in the Spighe Bianche garden on Via Lazzazzera, there was a performance from the Cantori Materani conducted by Alessandra Barbaro. The tour ended with a return to Casino Padula to participate in a Contini performance and spend the first spring evening with a DJ set.
Coldiretti donated the hundred trees, the hundred bales of hay that marked out the space of the great outdoor amphitheatre of Casino Padula and also the fruit that was given to the participants. ‘Evolutionary Garden’ is a participatory project that wants to create, with an extensive network of collective gardens, an open vision of the practice of plant reproduction, trying to escape the logic of domination of nature, uniformity, monoculture and embracing interspecies hybridisation, fusion, circulation and complexity.

Do you work in the art or culture environment and live in Basilicata? Would you like to host a Japanese artist in 2019 who will offer you hospitality in Japan in 2020?

The aim of the Passport Program is to launch a two-year reciprocal cultural exchange program for Italian and Japanese artists, to foster an exchange of ideas and knowledge and develop strong and lasting bonds between Lucanian and Japanese artists. 

In 2019 Lucanian artists and professionals will host a Japanese artist or citizen resident in Japan, while in 2020 Japanese artists and professionals will return the hospitality to Lucanian artists by hosting them in Japan. The Program is managed in partnership by Matera 2019 and EU-Japan Fest, a Japanese non-governmental organisation whose mission is to support cultural contacts of all kinds through the European Capitals of Culture. 

The call is open to artists and professionals in the cultural sector who are resident in Basilicata and work in any artistic domain (including arts and crafts, design, graphic work and architecture). 

To take part and host a Japanese artist please read the application information carefully and fill in the registration form you will find in the dedicated section under Transparent Administration. The completed form then needs to be sent to the following email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

Lucanian artists or professionals will be responsible for the Japanese artist’s food and accommodation expenses for the entire duration of their stay in Italy (i.e. from a minimum of 5 to a maximum of 10 days, excluding days for travelling to and from Japan). Matera 2019 will contribute a share up to €20 per diem for each artist hosted, up to a maximum of €200. To find out more, see the application information. The deadline for applications is 31 October 2019.

The I-DEA project expresses the power of archives in experimental and contemporary ways in one of the most cutting-edge exhibition spaces in Matera 2019: the Hangar Paradiso, situated in the Paradiso quarry on the outskirts of the city.
On 22 March the photographer Mario Cresci opened this amazing artistic journey with ‘The Two Cultures. Artefacts and Archives’ based on research he carried out which shed completely new light on the South of Italy and Lucania. Using archive material including photography, craftwork, science and machinery, Cresci proposed his view of the area from the mid 20th century to the first decades of the 21 st century, with Leonardo Sinisgalli and Mimmo Castellano, sculptures in wood by Di Trani and his son, also revisiting prehistory through Gianfranco Lionetti’s personal archive.

Mario Cresci’s exhibition was followed by ‘Unique Vision: Cultures of Environmental Manipulation’ by Formafantasma, which opened on 8 June and will continue until 15 September. The two Studio Formafantasma designers are some of the most interesting on the international design scene and for I-DEA they presented a video-installation consisting of 5 projections, 10 digital screens and a small group of vernacular objects.
Distributed in space as if to create a complete panorama, and placed at the entrance to the exhibition, the screens and their contents can be seen by visitors either individually or as part of a whole. Unique Vision focuses on the impact of human activity on the land, on actions that people have taken to shape the environment where they live. One of the main features of the I-DEA displays is to keep some elements from previous displays. So for Unique Vision by Studio Formafantasma the curators decided to leave in place the wood carvings by Giovanni and Giuseppe Di Trani, who was custodian at the Museo Ridola in Matera in the 1960s and 1970s, which represent human figures linked to nature, reality and country life.
The exhibition was mounted by the Open Design School and sponsored by Bawer SPA, a bronze partner for Matera 2019.
I-DEA is curated by Joseph Grima and is one of the main projects of Matera 2019: an experiment that considers archives and collections as living organisms that can be used to interpret the complex layers of history of Matera and Basilicata. Five artists and designers will alternate at the Hangar Paradiso, leaving as a legacy in the exhibition space part of the previous exhibition, so as to continue the process of rediscovery of our great cultural heritage.

The timeless beauty of numbers and mathematical relations with the universe of art.
This is the theme of ‘The Poetry of Primes’, reflected in the content of the third great exhibition of Matera 2019, under the scientific direction of the eminent mathematician Piergiorgio Odifreddi with installations by the Open Design School. This amazing exploration of the art of numbers, produced with the Museum Service of Basilicata, started at the National Archaeological Museum of Metaponto with the exhibitions
‘Numbers in time. Counting, measuring, calculating’ curated by Claudio Bartocci and Luigi Civalleri and ‘Filling the void. From the symmetries of M.C. Escher to contemporaries’ curated by Federico Giudiceandrea.

From Metaponto we move on to Matera, where Palazzo Acito reopened on Sunday 23 June with the inauguration of three exhibitions: ‘Numbers’ with works by Ugo Nespolo, who has always created images relating to mathematics and to reason; ‘Elements of transcendental
calculation’ with works by Tobia Ravà, a symbolic approach through the infinite possibilities of combining numbers; and ‘Computed Art’, with works by Aldo Spizzichino, interwoven with mathematics and incredibly profound. Three visions, three different pathways that explore the close relationship between art and mathematics.
Elsewhere, in the unique setting of the archaeological area of Metaponto around 1,500 visitors attended the stellar ‘Night with Pythagoras’ on Saturday 22 June. This special event featured performances by actors David Riondino and Valeria Solarino, who played Pythagoras and Hypatia from an original text by Piergiorgio Odifreddi with musical interludes by the pianist Alessandra Celletti. This was followed by the
eminent Piero Angela, the star turn of the evening, who gave a biographical talk on ‘Science and technology in modern society’, focusing on the key themes of communication, the falling birth rate and ageing.
The long night continued with a fascinating lecture by Guido Tonelli who explained the origin of the stars, accompanied by Eleuteria Arena on the cello. At dawn people stretched their tired muscles with a yoga lesson by Rosalia Stellacci and Andrea Stella to the sound of a beautiful concert by the pianist Alessandra Celletti, who played music from her latest wonderful album, produced in vinyl and inspired by the
maths of Pythagoras.
The long weekend closed with two interactive talks in the Auditorium of the University of Basilicata: ‘Prime numbers and their applications’ by the British mathematician Ian Stewart and a reading of ‘Mathematical Adventures’ by winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature John Maxwell Coetzee, alternating with readings by Piergiorgio Odifreddi.

Campo aggiuntivo 5:

Credits photo: Salvatore Laurenzana

Contemporary dance and the performing arts have been the protagonists of this first part of Petrolio, a project co-produced by Basilicata 1799. From 11 to 23 June site-specific entertainment and performances were the focus of a dialogue on the great, as yet unanswered, questions concerning the Anthropocene – the geological era in which human behaviour has directly affected environmental equilibrium and generated a new dimension of cohabitation.

Original productions, rehearsals and meetings with the artists explored the theme of the relationship between Man and Nature in a new aesthetic. The vision, ideas and actions are changing; people are no longer the centre of the universe and Nature is beginning to have real importance.

The performances were held in a natural setting without stage lighting in the field, wood and countryside of the Parco del Castello Tramontano in Matera, chosen for its position rather than its architecture. Almost all the shows lacked specific boundaries: the difference is in the way the public and the performers interact with the space. 

We start with Giacimenta (Deposits), curated by Francesca Corona and Michele Di Stefano. Their project consists of four episodes of artistic production, designed as an exercise in vision and an exploration model, in which they seek total complicity between the artist and the landscape, between places and people. The choreographers chosen for this episode, which plays with geological, social and human ‘layers’, are internationally renowned.

First was Alessandro Sciarroni, with a Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement award, considered one of the most revolutionary choreographers on the European scene. Starting from his observation of animal migration phenomena, his work focuses on ‘turning’, not only meaning ‘to turn’, but also to change or evolve. Bodies revolve round their axis in an emotional psychophysical journey. 

Sciarroni places one element at the centre of the creative process and repeats it relentlessly, using ballet to suggest something different. Unusually, youngsters also twirl incessantly en pointe. In the Matera version of Turning he chose five dancers through a call launched last November.

Another internationally famous artist, performer and choreographer in the Giacimenta section was Maria Hassabi from Cyprus. Her performances are examples of great symbolic value that link tensions and instincts between the environment and the individual in an expanded ritual temporal dimension. Minimalist movements and a gentle slowness, which suggest the need to slow down and a different way of experiencing the flow of things.

Hassabi’s Figures (2019) is a very delicate, complex and sophisticated work and for the first time she chose to use her way of working with a group of very young girls selected through a call launched in May. 10 dancers were chosen from the Lucania area to take part in this extraordinary experience, working with a professional who has performed in theatres, museums and public spaces worldwide, including MoMa in New York, the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. 

Closing the first weekend of performances was choreography by Silvia Rampelli, who in a preparatory workshop presented movement, action and dance activities for senior citizens. Once a week the residents of the Brancaccio rest home in Matera took part in a gentle and novel activity, eager to try a small breathing exercise, about being together, perception and vision. With Child’s portrait we wonder: where are we? When are we? What’s around us? 

The final performance event in this section was Le Merende by the artist collective Industria Indipendente, mainly devoted to performance, theatre and visual arts. Le Merende occupied this space following the principle of sharing, free giving and offering as a way of informing artistic practice. A place transformed into a natural habitat, where you can take a break between one performance and the next, with everyone present and a lively DJ set.

On the second weekend, opening the Sedimenti section were contemporary dance performances and live music with a DJ by WHO CARES? | Ecologia del dialogo. In a co-creation project four young choreographers – Bassam Abou Diab, Yeinner Chicas, Olimpia Fortuni and Leonardo Maietto – from opposite ends of the Mediterranean and two musicians – Ayman Sharaf and Stefano Zazzera – joined together to present a performance around the themes of the Anthropocene.  

The scene was an imaginary piece of land in the Mediterranean, a geographical location that defies association with any particular people or places and represents the styles of architecture and traditions of the Lebanon, Italy and Spain, the countries where the artists come from.

As well as performances, meetings with the artists and rehearsals to kickstart the creative process, dialogues also started in the section Geo-logical Thought with Marcello Di Paola, an expert in environmental philosophy. Events planned for September include the team of architects, landscape architects and gardeners Volumezero, Bartolomeo Dichio, Alba Mininni, philosopher Emanuele Coccia and lecturer Gianfranco Pellegrino. 

This was not simply a participatory event – it was a journey that made every citizen an integral part of Dante's work.

This was the intention behind 'Purgatorio, a Public Call for 'Divina Commedia, by Dante Alighieri', and this is what it turned out to be. The performance was produced by the Teatro delle Albe and directed by Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari, and involved not just IAC actors from Ravenna and Matera, but above all hundreds of local people. The idea behind the entire project was to construct a performance that would deal with the present, one that aimed to engage with what is happening today. When they took on this colossal work, Martinelli and Montanari decided to make use of to two distinct, yet complementary, theatrical traditions: sacred mediaeval events and the Russian people's theatre of the early twentieth century. It was this approach that provided the power behind the process, and which made it possible to go beyond the classic concept of participation, which can sometimes be bound to what is almost a deliberately amateurish approach, and to attain a fusion between the work and the citizens.
Purgatorio was built around local residents in such a way that they became a vital part of it, and without them it would have had no reason to exist.This is why it was essential to follow the protagonists of the process, to understand their hopes and emotions, and finally to be able to appreciate their development. Four local people of different sexes, ages and origin decided to tell their stories and to have them told during the construction of this collective performance. What emerges from the words of Tiziana, Maurizio, Antonella e Claudio, who joined hundreds of other citizens as part of the chorus of Purgatorio, is the explosive power of chorality, and at the same time the sometimes therapeutic function of the theatre, which has given our protagonists a serene new kind of awareness.

Campo aggiuntivo 5:

Credits photo: Néstor Boli Galindo

The things Felicia and Gianluca, the two Matera 2019 volunteers who were in Plovdiv just one month ago, tell you when you ask them about their experience in the other European Capital of Culture 2019 are almost like an unanticipated love story. It was a case of love at first sight, as surprising as the chance to make the trip, which they accepted instantly, and which led to them falling in love not just with the Bulgarian city, but above all with a lifestyle.

They constantly use one particular word, Aylak, in all their answers. They translate it as an exhortation – 'relax!' – which, they say, embodies the profound sense of a way of facing life they discovered during their trip. Felicia and Gianluca stayed with volunteers, and so they had the opportunity to experience the Aylak spirit in full. They talk about it happily. It is as if the suggestion had first surprised, then engaged and finally captivated them, all thanks to the fact that they learned it directly from volunteers like them, by working side by side.

During their stay, the two Materan volunteers worked on preparations for the 'Aylak Parade', a kind of procession involving huge papier maché dolls and strange costumed characters. They helped prepare the dolls, working with a Bulgarian theatre company, which allowed them to discover what happens behind the scenes of the event. Even the physiological moments of tension, they point out, did nothing to undermine the calm way of taking things that they discovered in a land they had known nothing about until a few days previously.

Perhaps it was this new perspective that enabled these two young people to relish every moment of an experience that took them to live among their Bulgarian colleagues. One just has to listen to their stories, to the word 'family' they use to describe the people who hosted them, to understand that Felicia and Gianluca have been on more than just a simple journey. 'We are doing everything we can to go back there soon as possible', they say in unison, as if to confirm that they are not going to allow this wonderful discovery get away from them.

The final curtain has fallen on Purgatorio, a wonderful spectacle that moved the entire community, a collective experience that became an extraordinary artistic production!

Two weeks of planning, 300 citizens directly involved in the performances and a wonderful response from audiences, with all the performances sold out.

The relevance of Dante's Purgatorio to our everyday lives can be found in the human vices and virtues represented in the extraordinary monologues by Ermanna Montanari and Marco Martinelli, the creators, artistic directors and directors of the joint stage event they put together call after call around people of all ages, languages and origins.

From 17 May to 2 June 2019, this splendid artistic production by the Ravenna Festival-Teatro Alighieri with Matera 2019, in collaboration with the Teatro delle Albe-Ravenna Teatro, also involved local theatre companies, including the IAC - Centro Arti Integrate. 

Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari's visionary gamble of transforming Dante's masterpiece into a theatrical event involving numerous incursions into important current topics – politics and sociology, and love and hope – was a success, from the intense, heart-breaking scene of women killed violently by their husbands, fathers, boyfriends and brothers to Pia, who becomes every woman in the world, and the final scene, in which four little Greta Thunbergs with pigtails made us think about the fragility of our planet caused by the irresponsibility of adults and those in power.

The show ended with loud applause in Via del Riscatto, the location of the splendid Cappella delle Monacelle and a metaphor for a great, prophetic spiritual rebirth.

Exhibitions, residencies, artistic performances, cooking classes, workshops and shows – and one single undisputed protagonist: bread.

Breadway, the project co-produced by Murgiamadre, was a journey and an experience through the streets of the Piccianello district reviving the tradition of bread between 6 and 9 June along a route that included bakers, the former mill and other iconic locations of the Rione.

The 'bread festival' united the telling of the story of local traditions with contemporary artistic expression. Temporary citizens and cultural inhabitants were involved together in an immersive experience that brought them closer to a heritage of knowledge and flavours.

Two exhibitions reopened the doors of the former Mulino Alvino, the first mill to be built in Matera at the end of the 19th century. They marked the start of the festival with an exhibition of the work by the students of the IED in Barcelona and the projects that had answered the call launched by ADI to design new kinds of bread.

The students of the European Institute of Design worked on various aspects of breadmaking: from the beginning, starting with the ingredients that make it up, to stale leftovers. Bread that feeds our bodies, bread that becomes a design item and makes it possible for us to try things out and create a new object while also recycling what is left.

The call launched by the Associazione per il Design Industriale in February, on the other hand, invited participants to create and propose new types of bread using a formula that was not limited to the strictly food-related aspect, but looked beyond it, as the great chefs have accustomed us to seeing. Cooks and designers share an extremely free creative process – they are two very closely-related professions, the only difference being that in the former case, the results are ephemeral and usually disappear after a few bites.

Design projects and performances by five international artists and food performers selected by Indisciplinarte both started out from a long creative construction process revolving around the subject of bread.

Rares Augustin Craiut and Xavier Gorgol took us though the Panificio Perrone for a lesson in anatomy in which the body that was being cut up was the bread of Matera, a megaphone of memories of journeys and migrations through stories collected from a call to people who have left the city. 

Floriane Facchini & Cie pulled memories of all kinds out of the cupboard, interviewing the inhabitants of Piccianello, whose faces and stories enriched the facades of its houses. For the final Cucine(s) Matera performance, a lively parade led visitors to the various stages of this temporary installation, with bread as its common thread.

With a characteristic mobile bakery, Catalina Pollack Williamson listened to stories from the participants and blended their contents together, starting out from memories and traditions. In the bucolic location of the Chiesa Rupestre di Cristo La Gravinella, Gosie Vervloessem performed a mystic ritual that brought a magical creature to life. Finally, together with Harinera Panem et Circenses, the Chilean Andrea Paz and Colectivo Harinera Site Specific, we relived the ancient tradition of crapiata through a contemporary version.

As well as the performances, there were also numerous workshops, including the Cooking Class run by the Associazione Cuochi Materani Derado Vandemoortele and the Consorzio I.G.P. Pane di Matera, children's workshops run by Cozinha Nomade in the shade of the pine trees in the courtyard of the Scuola Marconi and the collections and archives of Paneuropa, a redesigned map of Europe based on the various types of bread found on the continent.

The warm summer evenings were enlivened by a concert by Musica da Cucina, where utensils become instruments, ska with indie and reggae influences by Skanderground, Route 96's cooking blues show and the swing, jive and Dixieland sounds of the Spaghetti Brothers.

With Breadway, Matera and bread became a symbol of sharing, religiousness, holiness and creativity to create a new informed community. Breadway was a rediscovery of conviviality and the pleasure of being together in the name of bread.

Would you like to become a protagonist in 'Inhabiting the Opera'? We are looking just for you for one of Matera 2019's most highly-anticipated projects, which will be produced in collaboration with one of the world's oldest theatres, the Teatro San Carlo of Naples!

Citizens will be directly involved in the staging of Pietro Mascagni's opera ‘La Cavalleria Rusticana’, which will be set in the Sassi di Matera, an open-air theatre like no other in the world.

The performance will be divided into two parts: the first, which is a travelling show called 'Prologo sui Sassi', or 'The Seven Capitalist Sins', will involve the participation of citizens, and consists of short scenes inspired by the seven deadly sins illustrating the excesses of contemporary neoliberalism, while the second is a production of Pietro Mascagni's opera ‘La Cavalleria Rusticana’, directed by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, which will be performed in the picturesque setting of Piazza San Pietro Caveoso and the Church of Santa Maria di Idris.

Citizens will be asked to take part in both the scenes of 'The Seven Capitalist Sins' and in some brief crowd scenes in Pietro Mascagni's opera that will require simple theatrical actions, choruses and choral dances. All those wishing to take part in creating the opera will be involved in the following activities: workshops from 17 to 22 June, performance rehearsals from 10 to 30 July, a pre-dress rehearsal on 31 July, a dress rehearsal on 1 August, a first performance on 2 August, and a second performance on 3 August.

The workshop for citizens will be held between 17 and 22 June from 18.00 to 21.00 at the Casale in Via Madonna delle Virtù in Matera.

All citizens may take part in the workshop, based on their own availability.

Rehearsals for the show, which are scheduled to take place at the Teatro Quaroni in the La Martella district in July, will be held no more than three times a week during the afternoon or evening, so that everyone will be able to take part.

If you require further information, please send an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., adding ‘ABITARE L’OPERA’ in the subject line.

You must have a Matera 2019 Passport if you wish to participate in this public call.

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Sport and urban art merge, energise and transform public spaces, so people can enjoy the city beyond the historic centre. This is the guiding spirit of Open Playful Space, a project produced with Uisp Basilicata, which culminated in the Festival that ended last week.

This urban regeneration operation uses games, sport and urban art in a new way, by discovering and regenerating spaces for people to experience as accessible cultural places.

From 29 May to 2 June, with a preview on the weekend of 25 and 26 May, a large number of residents were involved in generating a new vision of public spaces and returning them to the whole community by highlighting what is usually invisible.

The festival preview featured a variety of games and circus arts, attracting the attention of children and families. The preview concluded with a 5-a-side football tournament, bringing together young people from Matera, European volunteers and migrants in an atmosphere of friendship and solidarity. 

Since 29 May the Festival has taken over the streets, squares and parks of the city with taster workshops and advanced ones for a more experienced public. The two symbolic places of the project were Piazza Cesare Firrao and Piazza degli Olmi, where regeneration work had already been introduced through street art, with the collaboration of students from the Istituto Comprensivo Bramante and the residents’ association of Piazza degli Olmi.

During the Festival street art was relaunched through two art installations. On the steps of the skating rink at the Parco Papa Giovanni Paolo II a brand new work was designed and made specifically for this space by Giorgio Bartocci, a street artist who explores the complex relationship between people and the local area. Bartocci enhanced the urban architecture that resembles an upturned boat with signs and symbols in gold, silver and copper.

The second installation was by designer and muralist Skolp, who added a vertical work to the actions he performed in previous months in Piazza degli Olmi, continuing with regeneration work on a public space belonging to a community that has already been involved in Matera 2019 activities. This artist from Bari signed his work with the geometric shapes and composition principles characteristic of his art, while students from the Scuola Bramante ‘adopted’ the columns in the square, using paint and varnish.

All of the Festival workshops were coordinated by leaders of international standing. The Art Du Deplacement workshops (an arts/sport discipline that combines freedom of movement with free thought) were coordinated by Laurent Piemontesi, one of the founders of this discipline which was established in France in the 1980s, with Muvt ASD. Lots of enthusiasts and keen participants got to grips with ADD and learned to overcome obstacles, walking and running along urban routes with amazing acrobatics, jumps and climbs.

The workshops focusing on circus arts, juggling and capoeira also featured professional artists with many years of experience, like the young Anglo-French family The Sprockets, the Pachamama company and the Brazilian Mestre Aranha from the Sao Salomao centre.

On the evenings of 1 and 2 June, the final event of the Festival was a performance in the Parco Giovanni Paolo II and Parco del Castello Tramontano of the multi-disciplinary show TransformAction directed by Pino Di Buduo, founder of the Teatro Potlach, a renowned and long-established Italian contemporary theatre company. 

The concept of TransformAction derives from the local area where it is performed. Green spaces and open spaces become a natural stage for the performance, which follows a winding artistic path for half a kilometre. The spectators become travellers in search of performances located in various places in the two parks, which are completely transformed by lighting, sets and projections on the central keep and lateral towers of the Castello Tramontano.

Performances included juggling, acrobatic dancing, stilt walking and circus arts accompanied by percussion rhythms, live music and Brazilian songs. On previous days a peaceful colourful caravan went through the city’s streets, astonishing local people with this invasion of their space by music and acrobatics.

Through Open Playful Space, Uisp Basilicata and all the partners involved want to send a clear message: the residents themselves can be the real protagonists of change, starting with young people capable of regenerating urban spaces and relationships by means of sport and street art. This great social phenomenon starts from the local area and drives a cultural revolution that improves lifestyles and health, representing an opportunity to which everyone has a right.

The project was carried out in collaboration with the following partners: ISCA, Uisp, Teatro Potlach, ADD Umbria Academy, Muvt ASD, Momart Gallery, Lacaposciuc ASD, TeatroPAT, Associazione Giallo Sassi, Associazione Joven, Basilicata Board and ASD Sk8ong Team.

Update 4 July 2019

Selection of participants for the Inclusive Dance Workshop for the project Movimento Libero is now closed. Below is a list of the admitted candidates.

The outcome of the selection 'Public Call - Inclusive Dance Workshop for the project Movimento Libero'.

Update 20 June 2019

The deadline for the call has been extended. Applications can be sent up to and including June 27th. Consequently, the outcome of the selection is also postponed to the 4th July.

This inclusive dance workshop is the second phase of the project MOVIMENTO LIBERO that explores the relationship between art and disability. This ‘Dance Workshop’ is a chance for disabled and non-disabled participants to explore the exciting contribution to dance made by disabled dancers.

Stopgap - Community Dance:

The workshop will be led by the world-renowned Stopgap Dance Company (U.K) who create contemporary dance productions with a cast of disabled and non-disabled dancers. It values ​​a pioneering spirit and is committed to making discoveries about integrating disabled and non-disabled people through dance.

Stopgap conducts creative learning projects and workshops for schools and local communities, to demonstrate how dance is accessible to all and to observe how integrating disabled and non-disabled people through such projects promotes active citizenship and social cohesion.

By filling in this form, you can apply for the Public Call to participate in the MOVIMENTO LIBERO inclusive dance workshop, led by Nadenh Poan and Siobhan Hayes, members of StopGap Dance Company, within the framework of Nessuno Resti Fuori - a theatrical, city and citizens festival. The Workshop is scheduled from 23 to 27 July 2019, it will be a 5-day course animated by English artists and open to disabled and non -disabled people: it will represent a new vision of performative art, enhancing skills through artistic expression . The workshop concludes with a performative outcome, seen as a restitution to the community, scheduled for 27 July and which will be repeated on 19 October at the opening of Stopgap’s ‘Artificial Things’ dance production.

This public call is launched by the Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation, the project MOVIMENTO LIBERO is a co-production with the British Council and in collaboration with IAC - Centro Arti Integrate and  Oriente Occidente Dance Festival.

Registration deadlines and conditions:

Registration will end on June 20, 2019. The outcome of the selection of participants will be published on www.matera-basilicata2019.it within 10 days from the end of the registration.

In a journey that leads citizens, both temporary and permanent, to become not only spectators but also active cultural builders, the selected candidates must be in possession of the Matera 2019 Passport in order to participate in the workshop. Concessions are available for disabled people.

Any travel, board and lodging expenses are at the expense of the participants.

Registration includes a commitment to participate in all the sessions of the workshop, the performance outcome of 27 July and the rehearsals and replication on 18 and 19 October.

Who is the workshop for and what is the selection criteria?

The laboratory is open to everyone, disabled and non-disabled people who are interested in exploring new forms of movement and relationship with their own body and with others.

Minimum age: 18 years

Maximum number: 20 people

Disability must not be an obstacle to participation, we guarantee full accessibility of the location in which the laboratory will take place. The workshop will be conducted in English with Italian translation. If necessary, additional communication assistance will be made available including Italian sign language.

The selection process will be carried out by the project partners and the laboratory conductors. We will use the registration form to evaluate:

• Your experience in the dance world: as a professional dancer, dance student, amateur dancer, spectator; (We know that disabled dancers have fewer opportunities, so we will consider "experience" in a very broad sense of the term)
• Your motivation to take part in this workshop;
• Your opportunities to apply the knowledge acquired in the laboratory in Basilicata and to share it within the local artistic sector and Italy;
• The general artistic context of the laboratory and public performance.

Laboratory

23 July - 27 July 2019 - from 9:30 to 13:00

Gym of the Istituto Comprensivo Pascoli - Primary School, via Lazazzera, Matera

Performative outcome July

27 July - afternoon/evening

Piazza Giovanni XXIII (in front of the church of San Pio X)

Performative outcome July

18 October - general rehearsals, time to be defined

19 October - show, time to be defined

Sala Pasolini, il Circo, Matera

Fill in this form to participate! 

Science and the arts seen as products of biological and cultural evolution: a reciprocal source of inspiration and an important channel of communication. These are ideas that the Matera2019 programme explores with a view to defining the relationship between humanist culture and scientific culture, in particular through one of the themes of the European Capital of Culture application dossier’s cultural agenda: Distant Future. This theme focuses on the age-old relationship with space and the stars – a relationship that follows in the steps of Pythagoras, one of the most illustrious residents of Basilicata – and explores the ancient universal splendour of science.

This was the starting point for Schisi, a series of five e-books created with Doppiozero, in an online cultural magazine edited by Marco Belpoliti. The five e-book articles on science and the arts are curated by Agostino Riitano – a project manager supervisor for Matera2019 – and focus on five authors who investigate interdisciplinary aspects, combining the rigour of their research with particular attention to the accessibility of the texts. The first volume is by Mario Porro with the title 'Margins of Science'. You can download the book for free here.

Collaboration with Doppiozero will generate one issue per month up until September, when two projects from the cultural programme will be presented to the public, blending science and the arts together emblematically: Wave and Quantum Dance. This Matera2019 event benefits from collaboration with major Italian and European scientific institutions, including the ASI/Space Geodesy Center in Matera, Trieste 2020 European City of Science and CNR.

The series has one objective in particular, which is to chart a course between the humanities and the pure sciences.

One of the leading lights of the Lucanian revival – the Egidio Romualdo Duni Conservatoire in Matera – has performed in some of the most prestigious concert halls in Europe, even in Salzburg, Mozart’s home city!

For the Duni Europe project, produced with the Italian Chamber Music Society over four venues, Duni musicians took up the challenge of making chamber music accessible to everyone through a series of new international concerts. Following the great success of the performances held on 30 April at the Conservatoire’s Auditorium in Matera, on 1 May in the town of Ariano Irpino and on 3 May at Casale Monferrato in its magnificent Municipal Theatre, the orchestra performed in one of the most famous concert venues: the Mozarteum in Salzburg. The Symphony Orchestra of the Egidio Romualdo Duni Conservatoire of Matera, conducted by Francesco Di Mauro, was the highlight of a concert which opened and closed with two works by contemporary composers from Lucania: Antonello Tosto and Damiano D’Ambrosio.

The concert featured the soloists Aiman Mussakhajayeva (violin), Adolfo Alejo (viola), Chungwha Lim (soprano) and the piano duo Sergio Marchegiani and Marco Schiavo. The programme also included the following works by Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 10 for Two Pianos and Orchestra in E-Flat Major (KV 365), an aria from Don Giovanni (‘Mi tradì quell’alma ingrata’), the Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola in E-Flat Major (KV 364) and two traditional Korean pieces, Dumulmori Arirang (Arirang of Love) by Geung-Soo Yim, and Mukungwha Arirang by Deok-Ki Chung. The versatile musician Antonello Tosto – who has composed music for various ensembles, including bands – dedicated his work to Matera, the city where he has studied and taught. In the Canto dei Sassi, Damiano D’Ambrosio – a composer from Lucania and tutor at several conservatoires – is inspired by his homeland, through music. The sub-title, Symphonic Postcards from Matera, is a suite for orchestra and reciting voice, which combines research and local tradition.

The ethnographical research, which brings people together through music, includes the two traditional Korean pieces. An Arirang is a Korean folksong, which has also listed by UNESCO.

Duni Europa combines musical traditions and cultures, which are expressed in the heart of the city that symbolises western music.

The number of community projects that the commission has deemed suitable from all of those proposed by citizens for citizens, and constructed thanks to the support of communities that network and share resources and enthusiasm, rises to 18. Some of these projects are scheduled to take place on several dates: there are already 38 days of events planned for the initial projects.

One of the most interesting aspects of the selected community projects is the regional dimension of the outputs. These initiatives are not only proposed by citizens and associations coming from municipalities throughout Basilicata, but they build bridges between distant places and realities of this region. Of the 18 projects launched, 6 will be implemented in the municipalities of Calciano, Genzano di Lucania, Miglionico, Montescaglioso, Noepoli and Pisticci, 2 have been designed by Matera institutions and will be located around the region between Barile, Ferrandina, Lauria, Potenza and Rotondella and 2 will be carried out in Matera but come from other places in Basilicata.

Since the month of April the first connections and networks that are animating the whole region have been implemented.  And this is indeed the case of Basilicata in… Cammino, a project conceived by the Il Carrubo A.P.D. Sports Association in partnership with other organisations that, throughout the region, are involved in spreading the culture of walking and the discovery of the territories. Through Trekking and Nordic Walking these associations offer itineraries aimed at exploring the territory and stimulating cultural exchange and networking between participants from each municipality of Basilicata, tracing and outlining paths of regional knowledge capable of uniting the different cultures and traditions. The value of this project lies above all in the future of these ties and in the regional design that makes it possible to strengthen and disseminate knowledge that can belong to the whole region.

Of a less regional character but no less widespread is the project The city meets Carlo Levi’s “Christ Stopped at Eboli” proposed by a group of members of the UNITEP (The University of Third Age and Permanent Education) who decided to carry around the neighbourhoods of Matera the text that has forever changed the history of this city by asking for hospitality from the citizens who open their homes, their gardens, their work and living spaces to readers and participants. 6 scheduled dates, of which 3 are still to take place, can be seen at Matera Events. The first 3 meetings were held at Casa Abiusi in the heart of the Sassi Districts, at Casa Francione in the village of La Martella and in the Integrated Multi-purpose Centre of Serra Rifusa and were attended by around 200 people. Amongst the participants there are also many temporary citizens who enjoyed the rare chance of being welcomed into the homes of the Matera people and listening to the personal stories of the inhabitants that are closely linked to the stories in the famous novel by Carlo Levi.

To celebrate World Book Day, the Alloper@ Association proposes for 28 April a day dedicated to reading, a real Book Festival for avid readers and enthusiasts who can play and share books and thoughts. The programme of activities, which also includes many moments dedicated specifically to children, is based on the exchange of books (BookCrossing) with a series of devices - old televisions transformed during workshops into Librovisori - that allow participants to donate and receive books.

All the initiatives proposed within the scope of Community Projects are free admission subject to availability and can be consulted on the official platform for Matera 2019 www.materaevents.it in the section dedicated to Community Projects.

A series of concerts, live performances and book presentations dedicated to food and its role not only as food but as a tool for socialising and creativity and an essential commodity for the well-being and economy of a community that can influence environmental equilibrium and stimulate social responsibility. Edible Orchestra offered a programme of innovative activities aimed at spreading these principles which, with the involvement of Italian and European artists, has seen the active participation of citizens.

The initial choice of venue for these events was the fruit and vegetable market, a meeting place and symbol of spontaneous gathering where it is possible to choose and express stances and which lent itself well to the message to be disseminated. The not too favourable climate did not stop the activities but unfortunately meant that they were transferred between the nearby Community Centre of Matera 2019 and the Gervasio auditorium.

On 9 and 10 April, the food designer Nick Difino led dozens of cultural inhabitants and temporary citizens in the preparatory workshops for the performance on Thursday of Les Tableaux Mangeants, an installation consisting of edible elements where food transcends the plate and becomes a palette of colours with which to experiment and seduce. Three days in which we went from talking about foods from memory and tradition to a shared selection of dishes to be cooked, from a lesson in the history of art to sharing the essential notions behind the choice of dishes that responded at the same time to both sentiment and the aesthetics of the work.

Before the artist's performance, there was a presentation of the book by Federico Valicenti Dalla tavola lucana al paradiso, a reading to be decanted like a fine wine. The Basilicata-born chef spoke to us about food as a metaphor for life and sharing because at the table you must be in good company to truly understand the essence of the dishes.

On 12 April the presentation/performance format was repeated with the journalist Stefano Liberti who in the afternoon transported us to the world of large-scale distribution with the book written together with his colleague Fabio Ciconte 'Il grande carrello. Chi decide cosa mangiamo'. At 20.00, Daniele De Michele as his alter-ego Don Pasta presented UNITED FOOD OF MATERA, an original multimedia performance based on the testimonies of eight citizens of Matera and their authentic relationship with food and cooking followed by a 'Cooking DJ Set': vinyl and pots, mixers and blender for a spicy DJ set of sounds from the whole world, including funk, reggae, South American and Mestizo London. A performance where you give yourself over to the excitement of food, its aromas, colours and forms.

On the final evening of Saturday 13 April, the headline event, a concert from the Vegetable Orchestra, was the first of its kind in the world. The distinctive feature of the Viennese ensemble is to perform only with musical instruments made from fresh fruit and vegetables, which for Matera 2019 were created together with temporary citizens.

Aided by drills, knives and screwdrivers, musicians and citizens have turned carrots into flutes or xylophones, leeks into violins and radishes into saxophones. For the concert in Matera an exceptional vegetable, the Crusco pepper, was used to introduce an original version of Stravinsky’s 'Le sacre du printemps', renamed by the orchestra as 'Le Massacre du printemps'.

The mix of sounds produced by vegetable instruments create an unusual and extremely rich universe of acoustics (not to mention the aromas that flood the environment) that could not be achieved with traditional instruments. And the effect is surprising from the very first notes.

Here are a few figures on the vegetables used: 30 aubergines, 5 cucumbers, 3 kg of dried beans, 170 carrots of different sizes, 2 cabbages, 10 Savoy cabbages, 3 large pumpkins, 20 leeks, 5 bunches of parsley, 5 bunches of spring onions, 25 white radishes, 3 bunches of salad greens, 8 celeriac, not to mention a number of large red, yellow and green peppers, onions, potatoes and courgettes.

At the end of the concert, which lasted about an hour, the audience gave a standing ovation not only for the Vegetable Orchestra that has been performing all over the world for 20 years, but also, and above all, for their message: the products of nature are indispensable for the community and must be defended at all costs.

The vegetables were provided for this occasion by Coldiretti Basilicata and, after the performance, they were donated to Don Angelo, pastor of the Church of San Rocco, to make a large soup to feed the poorest members of the parish.

An opera composed with the community, a collective story written by 150 hands that starts from an exploration: the silence that tells of a brusque interruption in the lives of the residents of Matera, once so crowded and noisy. This is Silent City, a story that starts with people, whose privileged voices are those of children and senior citizens – silent generations which lend their voice to the opera, together with composers, musicians, writers, singers, actors, drama tutors and international artists.   

The project is co-produced by the Compagnia Teatrale l’Albero, an art collective directed by Alessandra Maltempo and Vania Cauzillo, which has already experimented with new forms of artistic creation for the opera’s new audiences. The innovation of Silent City is to start with a challenge: take the opera where there is no operatic tradition or an opera house. The idea is to recreate the need for a genre, rediscover belonging to a language – the language of theatre in music, which today seems so remote from people.

The community takes on the role of composer and rediscovers opera as a genre for self-expression, in which people can recognise themselves. This is a unique experiment in Italy by Community Opera, which actively involves informal communities coming together in evoking how people lived in ancient times in the Sassi of Matera.

Each phase in the creation of the opera (history, music, libretto, sets and costumes) involves the input of the community, starting from the stories collected by the playwright Andrea Ciommiento – a set designer and curator of relational art projects – who met dozens of children, their families, students, young professionals and senior citizens over 60 in Matera, Potenza and Melfi. The collective story starts with a shared memory: three children from the present who one day escape from the forgotten part of their city – an ancient rocky place where they meet the silence child.

In the next phase the British composer Nigel Osborne, a pioneer in the use of music for children in war zones, Tommaso Ussardi, conductor of the Orchestra Senzaspine and Ubah Cristina Ali Farah, an Italian-Somali librettist and poet, collaborated in writing the music and libretto for the opera, inspired by the stories collected and reworked in the earlier workshops.

After months of work on the co-creation of this novel contemporary opera, the vast journey of Silent City is now nearing its conclusion. In order to stage the opera, the Compagnia Teatrale l’Albero, the Orchestra Senzaspine and Opera Circus (partners in the project) are looking for singers resident in Italy and Europe to join the cast of Silent City. There are various parts that can be applied for and the deadline for applications is 5 May 2019. The call published on the website by the Company provides all the information needed to apply.

The artists chosen will have the opportunity to be the protagonists of a project that represents an open culture in every possible way: open because it is available to everyone; open in its philosophy and emotions; and open because it is founded on dialogue with the places and communities.

The sounds of IN ViTRØ ~ Artificial sønificatiøn will soon start to echo through the cisterns, subterranean areas, castles and abbeys of Matera and the rest of the region. IN ViTRØ is a sound art project co-produced by LOXOSconcept which explores the relationship between sound and silence with interactive art events and workshops. Exhibitions, installations, performances, residencies, labs and workshops discover the silence that never ceases to involve sound and require its presence.

Significant and everyday places from the past are ideal scenarios in which to start reflecting on how our modern environments are bombarded by sound, but also to suggest how we might move towards a new acoustic ecology. The work Echi d’Acqua (water echoes), for example, offers an artistic interpretation of the Palombaro Lungo, the largest cistern for water collection hidden beneath the central Piazza Vittorio Veneto. The art installation will emphasise the relationship between sight and sound through the sound sign found in the music of five composers. The specific acoustic features and important architectural elements of the Palombaro will be enhanced through visual and musical stimuli: the presence of water, its forms, geometry and flow, sensorial impact of the walls and their colour, the impression of acoustic resonance phenomena.

The Sound Art Exhibition in September still has a call open for artists across the world of all ages to propose a reflection on sound and silence. The art installations, performances and sound sculptures, chosen by a special international committee representing leading art centres, will descend on Matera as expressions of the latest trends in sound art, which will be a veritable sonic invasion!

The competition is in two sections: the first is for existing sound art works to be displayed in the exhibition, while the second is for projects to be developed and presented in the art residencies that will take place in the picturesque locations of the Monastery of Santa Chiara in Ferrandina, the Bottini di Irsina and the Abbey of St Michael Archangel in Montescaglioso. The deadline for submitting proposals is 15 May 2019.

Thanks to the European partnership with ZKM [Center for Art and Media] (Germany), Gaudeamus Muziekweek (the Netherlands), Tempo Reale and Spaziomusica (Italy), EU Japan Fest (Japan)  and CeReNeM (UK) the works produced and selected may also be shown in 2020 in other parts of Italy and in Europe, to encourage art mobility.

The IN VITRØ project will launch in May with the section MUTE [silent film mutations] and focus on silent films, in particular on sound and music aspects, in collaboration with the Keyhole Association and the EDISON Studio collective. IN VITRØ concludes in late September 2019 with a new production: a preview performance in Italy of work by the famous Japanese artist Ryoichi Kurokawa.

Information about all the project events can be found on the official calendar, which is regularly updated.

The results of the Call for Matera 2019 artistic residencies are available online. Many people participated in the call, with half of the 115 forwarded applications being submitted by associations working all over the region. 9 out of 35 eligible projects, which were selected by the board, will be funded.

Many of the submitted projects stand out for their high quality and final decisions were made based on the slight difference between projects intending to create cultural productions and projects seeking to exploit the opportunities offered by an artist-in-residence programme.

The winning projects deal with very different topics. "La radio da quaggiù" by the Association Al Parco Onlus of Satriano di Lucania deals with radio, a medium that Matera 2019 has chosen over the years as its favourite means of communication because of its intangible characteristic and wide reach.

"InsideSouth", by the collective PLUS APS of Pisticci, is a photography residency aimed at taking pictures on what is not apparently visible as well as building a collective reflection on the fragility of the territory and on the potential re-use of abandoned or underused historic building heritage.

"Comics storytelling" by the Association Supertramp of Viggiano aims at regenerating the mountainous suburbs through the gaze of cartoonists.

“Torre Stormita” is a residency organised by the Association “Terre Joniche Magna Grecia” which gives artists the opportunity to be hosted in Medieval towers overlooking the sea.

The “Centro Carlo Levi” of Matera submitted an urban regeneration project called “Icone per il futuro” that will involve important street artists. “Qualcuno che ne carpisca il segreto” is a project by the cooperative Synchronos, which will bring together Basilicata and Sardinia in sewing workshops held by internationally-renowned artists and fashion designers. The association Basilicata Link suggests activities on the almost abandoned rural suburb of Borgo Taccone and aims to re-write its history and future with the project “Esto También pasarà”.

The Regional Committee of Arci Basilicata will create “Un atlante del paesaggio rupestre” (An Atlas of the Rock-Hewn Landscape), which is a map of stories, stones and legends hidden between Matera and Montescaglioso, within the mysterious area of the Murgia and the Calanchi. The association Lucania Documenta will implement the “Gens - Mutazioni” project, which will tell the story of the past, the present and the future of Rivello through the voices of its inhabitants.

This link shows the list of all eligible projects that will be funded, the eligible projects that cannot be funded due to lack of resources, non-eligible projects as well as the projects that could not have been evaluated.

On 30 March the institutions that submitted the 35 eligible projects, which obtained a minimum score of 50, were invited to submit their project ideas to the community and to take part in a co-creation day in collaboration with European partners. The meeting focused on cross-border mobility and sustainability.

Matera 2019 commits itself to continuing the work started on 30th March so that further funding and participation opportunities may be highlighted to build up a community of residence curators. The opportunity of allocating mobility microvouchers ("go&see") to all the holders of eligible projects is currently being examined. It was already done with the Project Leaders and it proved successful in setting up international networks of European partnerships.

A blue box containing a map of the city, a bookmark with a list of emotions, a few crayons and some sheets of drawing paper for you to record important places in your life. This is the starting point for the long journey of emotions, collected and preserved in the Atlas of the City’s Emotions. Over 300 of Matera’s residents, aged between10 and 80, have been given this box and asked to draw their own ‘emotional map’, identifying places in the city where significant emotional events in their lives have taken place. 300 residents, 300 emotional maps, 3,000 secrets: a first kiss, the route to school, a quarrel, the streets where their grandparents lived, places which are still there, have changed, or have disappeared.

On 23 and 24 March La Secretissima Camera de Lo Core was opened – a site-specific multisensory installation divided into different areas, where residents’ memories bring to life the soul of places. The Chamber, which is the first chapter in the project ‘Atlas of the City’s Emotions’, co-produced by the Teatro dei Sassi, is an innovative way of visiting the city. Secret tales of the city become the spark that illuminates Matera’s streets. The installation will remain open for any visitor with a Matera 2019 Passport until 31 July in the Library, where the cultural heritage of the city is stored.

Some important international partners have contributed to the project. The stories of the ‘emotional map makers’ have been read and adapted by the author Alessandro Baricco with young writers from the Holden School in Turin who, acting as a link between the life of the city and the feelings of its residents, have produced a fascinating and diverse collection of stories ‘from the heart’ of Matera.

Closely connected with the maps drawn by residents are 37 works by the artist Stefano Faravelli – well known for his travel log – and by a group of over 40 artists under his direction, half of whom are from Lucania.

During the inauguration of ‘La Secretissima Camera de Lo Core’ visitors were entertained by choreography designed by the German dancer and choreographer Heike Hennig, who was inspired by the emotional maps, the works by the artists who took part in the ‘apiaries’ directed by Faravelli, and the first stories of young writers from the Holden School.

The design of the Chamber is also the work of Paolo Baroni, who makes theatrical devices and artisan lighting, while the artistic director is Massimo Lanzetta of the Teatro dei Sassi.

The literary and artistic adaptation and the community that collected memories, secrets and stories, have together created a great ‘Mother Map’: an emotional itinerary through the city produced by Stefano Faravelli on rice paper, which describes 15 stages of a novel route including unusual features of Matera and contains the wonderful scroll written by Alessandro Baricco. From 2020, the ‘Mother Map’ will be produced in a pocket-sized format and distributed to visitors who want to follow the ‘emotional places’ route through the city. On returning home, visitors will find a moment to reflect on their experiences of the journey and share them on the Atlas website with all the other ‘emotional travellers’.

The Circus+ festival closes having achieved great interest and participation with the numbers saying it all. 5 weekends of shows dedicated to the 5 themes of the candidacy bid-book during which the Matera 2019 audience watched the most amazing and riveting circus shows in Europe.

23 international circus companies were involved along with 112 artists coming from 10 different countries and from the South of Italy, and 5 bands took turns on stage at both the Grand Chapiteau (Big Circus tent) and the Petit Chapiteau (Small Circus tent) from 14 February to 17 March.

A packed programme of sold out events  - 37 shows, 6 events including the presentation of a book and projections of films about the circus world as well as tens of shows with about 10,000 audience members who were welcomed heartily by 160 enthusiast volunteers. Moreover, Matera 2019 social media reported a huge number of reach and online engagement. Pictures, videos and the whole livestream of one of the performances reached 19,000 Facebook views, 3021 Linkedin views, and obtained 275 Instagram likes on average as well as 1594 views on the Youtube channel.

The artists used many traditional and unusual  tools and equipment, such as ropes, cords, trapezes,  fabrics, clubs, bolas, balls, ladders, spheres, Chinese plates, hats, magic ropes, mini bikes, rola bolas, roue cyrs, hula hoops, unicycles, Chinese poles, diabolos, comic balls, lampshades, spinning ropes, water hoses, plastic bags and whirling skirts.  

During the first weekend the first act named Circus as transformation was dedicated to Roots and Routes, the theme of the candidacy bid-book that links tradition to its contemporary forms. The shows are the outcome of the contamination of different cultures and disciplines melting with performing arts, which range from dance to theatre.

Two couples of artists, with different knowledge and vocations, performed in an avant-garde synthesis. The actor and performer Antonio Rezza and the artist and author Flavia Mastrella, the Uruguayan aerial acrobat Fabiana Ruiz Diaz and the Italian multidisciplinary artist Giacomo Costantini of the company El Grito took turn on stage.

Water, wind and other natural elements were the protagonists of the shows of the second act, Circus as transition, dedicated to Utopias and Dystopias, the theme of the change. This week, Phia Menard, who gave two performances, and the dervish Ziya Azazi also dominated the circus stage.

During the third weekend, the third act named Circus as aggregation  was dedicated to the theme of Continuity and Disruptions and we set up gymnastics shows  in which the tools were works of art and merged with the artists. Three international artists stepped up: the French Cécile Mont Reynaud, the Italian  Martina Nova and the German Jorg Muller followed by the Belgian Clown Duo Okidok.

The team spirit that characterises the best circus groups was the focus of the fourth act titled Circus as collaboration. The artists demonstrated mastering arts and disciplines which require coordination and overall view. It was a reminder of the collective intelligence in order to challenge human abilities. The show by Groupe Acrobatique de Tanger, which is made up of 12 acrobats and 2 musicians from Morocco, defies the law of gravity in collective and exhilarating acrobatics whilst the Forum Nuovi Circhi gathered almost all the Italian Contemporary Circus companies: Circo Paniko, MagdaClan Circo, Side Kunst Cirque, Circo Zoé, Arterego, Circo Krom, Circo Patuff, Teatro Nelle Foglie, L'Iglù and Circo Baraka with 46 elements overall.

In Circus as innovation, which is the fifth act linked to the theme of Ancient Future, circus tradition was challenged through the contamination of arts by five out-of-control acrobats/dancers The Black Blues Brothers, Mister David and The Family DEM and El Grito.

See the pictures of all the performances and the video tale of the whole Circus +.

European Circostrada Network and European CircusNext Label collaborated to Circus+ .

Circus+ is supported by the Embassy of France and the Institut Français.

Sensors built with a class of students to measure water levels in a river. A road race where all competitors ‘have their cross to bear’. Workshops to help disabled children make papier-mâché angels for the Carro della Bruna (the float carrying the Madonna della Bruna). An abandoned railway station turned into a stage for a play. Carlo Levi’s famous novel re-read in itinerant meetings.

What do these projects have in common? They are designed and planned by residents for the residents. People from Matera and Basilicata who have responded to the Public Call for Community Projects  submit their ideas for a project, which will be included in the Matera 2019 official programme.

The Public Call aims to promote projects which are created by the community, agreed by residents and which reflect ‘the grass roots’. The successful projects promote processes that foster new skills acquired from involvement in culture-related activities, by creating the opportunity – at local and European level – for people to connect and relate.

The first 11 projects selected, with support from Matera 2019, will focus on people’s aspirations, logistical and organisational needs, challenges and opportunities. Collaboration is key in enabling projects to take shape and qualify as community projects.

The Public Call process, in which all the projects have taken part, consists of two stages. In the first, the project ideas are developed so they can become community projects. The proposals designed and delivered with the support of community project leaders and of Matera 2019 can then proceed to the second stage, where a more detailed form needs to be filled in. The proposals are then judged by a committee.

The first projects approved after the second stage  will soon be launched, with the signing of agreements and the deployment of the first practical initiatives for their implementation. Any new project ideas in line with the criteria set out in the Public Call must be submitted by 30 July 2019, only via the online form available on the website (under Get Involved). The deadline for projects to reach the second stage is 14 September 2019.

Update 27 June 2019

The results of the Call for Artists are available online. 

Inhabiting the Opera is a project co-produced with one of the oldest theatres in the world, the Theatre San Carlo in Naples, which intends to stage “Cavalleria Rusticana” by Pietro Mascagni in the heart of the Sassi districts from 2nd August to 11th August.

Experimenting with a new model for culture production and valorisation, citizens will be involved in this project that is mainly focused on strengthening cultural citizenship and direct community participation.

The Opera will be performed outdoors and the audience will be engaged in writing the script of the Opera that will be set in a contemporary context.

The itinerant performance will be made up of two parts. In the first part the protagonists will be involved in choirs, collective dances and theatre actions in a "Prologue on the Sassi" titled ‘THE SEVEN CAPITAList SINS. The disasters caused by Neoliberism”. During the second part the real performance of the Opera by Mascagni, directed by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, will be staged in the beautiful setting of Piazza San Pietro Caveoso dominated by the Church of Santa Maria di Idris.

Actors, dancers, parkourers and street dancers are invited to apply for the development of the Prologue for the creation of the Opera.

Applicants should email their CVs and a self-introduction video by 7th April. The auditions to select the candidates will be held at the Theatre San Carlo of Naples from 13th April to 14th April. The selected artists will attend two workshops in Matera. The first workshop will be held from  22th April to 30th April for a further selection of artists. The second workshop will be held from 17th June to 22nd June.

The artists selected during the two workshops will take part in the rehearsals and in the performance planned from 3rd July to 11th August.

Details about the application are available in the transparent administration section of our website. During the auditions the director will give further information about the artistic performance.

Wuyeh and Savane are both tailors. Wuyeh is a young Gambian boy who arrived in Italy when he was a child, after moving from place to place for two years. Savane, instead, had to escape from the Ivory Coast because he made suits for an important politician and at the outbreak of the war, his name was on the list of the people to be persecuted. Trèsor was enrolled in the faculty of architecture and managed a building company in the Congo that employed 20 citizens. He left his country with his children and his wife who died at sea during their journey. Tessy is a Senegalese single mother and Mohammad is a Pakistani boy who escaped from the Taliban, who wanted to kill him because he was involved in rescue activities during big disasters on behalf of an NGO.

These are just a few stories that the Silent Academy tells through everyone’s skills and abilities within a project relying on the values of equality, integration and contamination among different cultures. Nowadays, immigration is one of the key issues in National and European debates whilst elsewhere walls are being built and bridges are being destroyed. Matera 2019 and Il Sicomoro,  which is a social cooperative set up in 2002 to give voice to “Silent people”, respond with a message of inclusion starting from the awareness that talents are everywhere in the world.

Matera 2019 Silent Academy enhances the migrants’ artisan skills within hosting communities. It has set up a school of craft skills to foster the acknowledgement of professions of those people who escape from war and famine as well as to acknowledge the professional experiences acquired in their countries of origin, which they skillfully use within their new homes.

The workshops are held by a migrant teacher and a local expert, who together with participants gather skills and traditions to make products with a new identity. Savane and Wuyeh are the tailors of the sewing workshops, Trèsor will be one of the experts in decoration and plastic design, Mohammad  works Matera’s tufa stone and Tessy has participated in a fashion parade along the streets of the city. She wore a golden dress made with the fabric of an isothermal blanket, which is the same type of blanket that migrants put on when they arrive ashore. This golden dress was made by the Ivorian tailor Ibrahim and the artist BR1 from Turin.

Following a co-creation and capacity building process, the Silent Academy made its debut from last June to July. It organized 20 days of public art and social craftmasnhip during which collective works were made together with foreigners and local people coming from different towns of Basilicata: Rionero in Vulture, Nova Siri, San Chirico Raparo and Matera. It was a journey through the places, the histories of the towns and the people living in them, regardless of their skin colour.

In 2019 a long series of workshops opened to all the holders of the Matera 2019 Passport and involved 230 temporary citizens. On 20 March the first performance titled Sotto lo stesso manto (Under the Same Cloak) will be staged. The clothes made by the fashion designer Eloi Sessou will be worn for a collective performance curated by Mariano Bauduin, which takes inspiration from an ancient icon of the town of Matera, “la Madonna del Terzo Settore”.

A modern “symphonic poem” specially composed by Bauduin and performed by the wind Orchestra from Grottole and by "Corale per San Giovanni" from Naples will celebrate diversity searching its harmony, from the “tamurriata” (translator’s note:the dance on the drum, typical folk dance of Campania) for the Virgin Mary, to a revised orchestration of “Missa Luba”, created in Afro-American form.

This event is inspired by a big seventeenth-century painting (la Madonna del Gonfalone) which hangs at the back of the church. The painting depicts the Virgin Mary wearing a special cloak, who is the Matera icon belonging to the fraternity which bear the same name. This painting shows the brothers on one side and on the other the “entrusted” -  the poor and the forgotten. They are all under the same cloak and the fraternity helps and “entrusts” them to the “Mother”.

An installation evoking the scenic action will be set up in the Church of Santa Maria of Costantinople, within the complex of the Museo Diocesano (Diocesan Museum), where it will be possible to admire the original painting the event took inspiration from until 24 March.

This event will start the restoration of the big painting of "Madonna del Gonfalone", which will be funded by the social cooperative Il Sicomoro.

Information about the project, the events organised by Silent Academy and the ways you can participate in the next workshops are available on both the Matera 2019 website and on the Il Sicomoro website in the project-related sections.

Silent Academy tries to tell a different story about immigration -  a new story made up of opportunities rather than resentment, of humanity rather than divisions. Culture belongs to everybody. This is what Silent Academy wants to tell us.

The project The Poetry of Shame has completely reached its goal, which is telling the story of a “redemption” through theatre and performative language. It showed that when we reverse our shameful and vulnerable side we can unlock our human potential.

The project is co-produced by #reteteatro41, with Franco Ungaro as coordinator and Antonella Iallorenzi of ‘Petra’ theatre company as art director. Together with the theatre company ‘L’albero’, ‘IAC Centro Arti Integrate’ and ‘Gommalacca Teatro’, Antonella has founded #reteteatro41, a cultural organisation that develops relations and actions supporting territories, institutions and operators at regional, national and international level.

The project is included in the theme ‘Continuity and Disruptions’ and follows the relevant guidelines planned in the Candidacy bidbook. It investigates the concept of shame as a positive impulse towards a collective process of self-analysis, self-criticism and self-improvement, which can generate new strength and greater optimism about the future.

This important theme is based on the assumption that the investigation on shame, which characterised the history of both Matera and whole of Europe, may lead to change its meaning, by starting up a dialogue among different cultures and creating connections between Eastern and Western Europe in order to build up a common cultural area based on shared values.

Humana Vergogna was staged from 1st to 9th March. It was also performed at Teatro Paisiello in Lecce on 11th March. It is the outcome of a long process of artistic research and creation that has turned shame into beauty. Shame is seen from a range of perspectives – shame for one’s own body, family, failure, sex as well as for being different. The live performance brought art into the jail of Matera and, despite its apparent lightness, it dealt with the innermost features of our identity.

The investigation on the word ‘shame’ starts from a deep analysis carried out by performers which then explodes in entwined bodies that explore every nuance of the theme through dance moves and thundering words accompanied by a soundtrack mixing pop music and opera. Daily fragility, humiliation and embarrassment, private and collective shame – all of them find a place in this sparkling performance that provides a careful and sensitive analysis of the most intimate of human shame and of the relevant poetic visions.

The ad hoc production was entrusted to Matteo Maffesanti and Silvia Gribaudi. The latter has been working for years on the embarassment experienced by people with “conspicuous” bodies. Her work aims at freeing them from stereotypes and desecrating them with beauty. The performers, including actors and dancers, were selected during the artistic residence that took place in Skopje from November to December 2018. Artists include Mattia Giordano, Antonella Iallorenzi and Mariagrazia Nacci, from Basilicata, Simona Spirovska from Macedonia and Ema Tashiro from Japan. On their return from the capital of the Republic of North Macedonia, the artists started to work on the performance in the village of Satriano di Lucania where they engaged the local community in theatre and shared ideas and suggestions on the concept of shame with citizens and students.

‘Humana Vergogna’ is part of the project ‘The Poetry of Shame’. It is the result of a process in performing arts, which was started with workshops held at the ‘Accademia Mediterranea dell’Attore’ of Campi Salentina (Lecce) last year. In this first phase, open calls addressed to international actors, dancers and performers were announced with the aim of giving young artists a chance of training abroad and of contributing with their critical work to the development of the idea underlying the project.

The first workshop, was held from 8th to 12th May and directed by Massimiliano Civica, who was awarded the Ubu Prize in 2016 and in 2017. The second workshop took place from 3rd to 7th November and was directed by Radoslaw Rychcik, one of the most renowned directors of Polish theatre.

In the second phase of the project, the research continued with the workshop ‘Shamelab’, held in the jail of Matera from 19th September to 23rd November by Antonella Iallorenzi, an expert on social theatre and founder of #reteteatro41. The workshop’s aim was to investigate, with the prisoners, the word ‘shame’ and play with the connected stereotypes in order to break the pattern and free the mind. The research ended with a performance open to the public, an intense and evocative moment that joined prisoners and the community of Matera.

During the third phase of the project an artistic residence took place in Skopje at the end of 2018 with the collaboration of partners from the Balkans. The artists to be involved in the performance were selected during the drama workshop led by Sharon Fridman, the top dancer and choreographer in contemporary Israeli dance, and in the dance-theatre workshop led by the former director of the National Theatre of Kosovo, Jeton Neziraj, and the coreographer, director and performer Silvia Gribaudi.

Besides theatre workshops and performances, the research planned in the project ‘The Poetry of Shame’ was carried out also through international meetings involving renowned people in the Balkan and European culture and theatre. The first meeting was held in Matera at the beginning of November. Its aim was to deepen the reflection on ‘shame’ in a multidisciplinary context involving cinema, literature, anthropology, poetry and architecture thanks to the contributions by Mario Desiati, Mario Bianchi, Giuliano Geri, Misumi Misuki, Cristina Amenta, Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers e Fatos Lubonja. The second meeting was held in Skopje and was aimed at talking about the connections between the capital of the Republic of North Macedonia and Matera, moving beyond national borders and shame towards an open Europe. The third meeting was held in Matera at the end of the first performance and focused on the theme of internationalisation of arts. It saw the participation of international art directors and programmers supporting the dissemination of the performance.

This is the end of the co-creation work with #reteteatro41, which started from the long capacity building programme that Matera 2019 created in order to strengthen practices that remain on the Lucanian territory, thus leaving a significant legacy even beyond the year as European Capital of Cuture.

We live in an era where information travels fast and is at times superficial. The challenge posed by Future Digs is to give rise to more profound reflections with some of today’s most authoritative personalities – historians, scholars, researchers and intellectuals – who will bring  Matera to the centre of the European cultural debate. The outcome of the first events on the programme has been positive, opening with “Lezioni di Cinema” (Lectures on the Cinema) – a series of showings and meetings  organized with the Lucana Film Commission as a partner.

On February 7th, the Cinema Piccolo set the stage for a collective reflection on contemporary film-making entitled “Ieri. Andreotti e il cinema: I modelli produttivi nella prospettiva europea” (“Yesterday. Andreotti  and cinema –productive models in a European perspective”). In this  full-scale show, Tatti Sanguineti, the exceptional mentor of this series,  engaged experts and authoritative partners such as writer and journalist Bruno Gambarotta and Paride Leporace, the director of the Lucana Film Commission. This lecture on cinema showed how depth and lightness could be joint in a conversation that offered an attentive audience intriguing details on the leading role played by “Il Divo” ( translator’s note “the Star”, as Andreotti is often referred to ) in the history of the cinema after the Second World War.

On February 9th the cultural baggage of Future Digs was moved to Casa Cava for the inauguration of the series (“Lezioni di storia. Oltre I confine”) “Lectures on History. Beyond borders”, organized in cooperation with Editori Laterza. It tells of the never-ending need of peoples to cross geopolitical and cultural borders in a continuing transformation of the self and of others.

The lecture series was opened by an expert popularizer – Alessandro Barbero who took part in the meeting “Ai confini dell’Europa: da Adrianopoli a Poitiers” (“On the borders of Europe: from Adrianopolis to Poitiers”) dealing with the great invasions from the late Roman Empire up to the time the Muslims appeared on the scene. The lecture was very well-attended and a large audience could also follow from home thanks to YouTube streaming, with over two thousand viewings registered.

After the kick-off with the historian Barbero, on Saturday February 23rd Casa Cava was again the venue chosen for the lecture (also on livestream) held by Franco Farinelli, the Dean of the Philosophy and Communications Department of the University of Bologna and chairman of the Association of Italian Geographers (Agei). Views were exchanged on the evolution of spatial models used to represent the world during the event “Ai confini della terra: da Colombo a Google” (“To the boundaries  of the world : from Columbus to Google”). How is our idea of the world being reshaped with the advent of the Internet? What do you think about the concept of ‘boundaries’? Questions such as these ones are what we attempted to answer together with the students of the schools who took part in the discussion. In this article they tell us how, in their view, the concept of boundaries has changed.

Lezioni di Storia (Lectures on History) is an event fully in tune with the spirit of the European Capital of Culture – looking to the past with a look towards the future.

After the lectures on cinema and those on history on February 27th, it is time to open the chapter regarding lectures on democracy. After  the first meeting in Milan, “People have the power” will be launched in Matera with five dates organized in cooperation with the Fondazione Giacomo Feltrinelli in order to gain insight into the processes of grassroots participation.

The lecture entitled “Democrazia è: il potere di realizzare” (“Democracy is: the power to make things happen”) was moderated by the Huffington Post journalist Angela Mauro and featured the following speakers: the sociologist Giovanni Moro, Michelangelo Secchi of the Centro Estudios Sociais of the University of Coimbra, Elio Manti of Basilicata Region and Silvana Kuhtz of the University of Basilicata.

And that is not the end of Future Digs: in order to bridge the distance between citizens and institutions , citizens are invited  to bring their ideas and energies to the gatherings on the 6th, 7th and 8th of March for another set of lectures on democracy, cinema and history.

The 8th of March is a special date as it marks the opening in Matera of the Biennale di Democrazia, a cultural  event promoted by the City of Turin and organized  by the Fondazione per la Cultura Torino and the Polo del ‘900 with the contribution of Compagnia di San Paolo and the support of Intesa Sanpaolo. For further information, please access the official Matera 2019 calendar of events.

The 14th February will witness the return of the magic that charmed audiences during the Opening Ceremony. For 5 weekends in a row at the Parco del Castello Tramontano in Matera, Circus+ will host performances that have never been seen in the South of Italy.

Over 10 circus companies and artists from Italy but also from Morocco, France, Turkey, Belgium, Germany, Japan and Kenya will bring the best of contemporary circus performances created in Europe to Matera.

Two circus tents, shows, get-togethers with artists, moments of discovery specifically catering to small children and all the magic of the Nouveau Cirque in its most innovative international expressions. It will be a journey to discover the universe of circus art divided into five parts, from traditional circus acts to the most visionary frontiers, following the thread of the five themes contained in the Matera 2019 bid-book. Each date focuses on a specific relationship between the theme, the artists’ poetic expression and the audience.

This is the magic of a circus that comes closer and closer to the world of the theatre and  dance, blending its own repertory with the repertory of the performing arts. The traditional forms are revisited, reaching surprising experimental accomplishments.  

The Matera 2019 Passport will enable holders to attend the many contemporary circus performances where top artists like Flavia Mastrella and Antonio Rezza, Phia Menard of the Compagnie Non Nova, Jörg Müller, Ziya Azazi and many more will take turns on stage.

Each day will be divided into two different programmes – one at the Grand Chapiteau where booking is required and the other at the Petit Chapiteau where entrance is free up to a maximum seating capacity of 250.

The Grand Chapiteau will host performances by theatre companies from 9pm to 10.30pm  from Thursday to Saturday and on Sundays from 7pm to 8.30pm.

The shows are all suitable for a range of spectators including small children, but the performances of "L’Après-midi d’un faune" on Wednesday 20th and Saturday 23rd at 5pm are especially meant for children, young people and families.

In order to attend all the performances at the Grand Chapiteau, you need to show your Matera 2019 Passport as well as your booking which will be considered valid until 15 minutes prior to the performance. No one will be admitted to the Chapiteau after the show has begun.

Performances may be booked online on the official Matera 2019 calendar of events and at the Info Point at 125 via Lucana in Matera. Every Thursday, it will be possible to book the shows of the following week.

To get a taste of contemporary circus art with the mini performances and live music gigs at the Petit Chapiteau, no bookings are required. "Palco Aperto – Circo in Pillola" ("Open Stage – Circus Capsules") is a space that will entertain all spectators on Thursdays and Fridays from 7pm to midnight, on Saturdays from 8pm to midnight and on Sundays from 5pm to 11pm. In addition, on Saturdays from 6pm to 8pm, spectators can watch the “CineCirco – Circo in pellicola” (“CineCircus – Circus Shows”) where films devoted to circus art will be shown.

Admission to Petit Chapiteau requires no booking, but the Passport Matera 2019 must be shown at the entrance.

In order to facilitate the purchase of the Matera 2019 Passport and bookings, during the Circus+ days, the Info Point on via Lucana will stay open one hour longer in the evening, until 9pm. It will be closed only from 1.30 to 2.30pm.  To cancel a booking, you may send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or come to the Info Point personally.

Check the official Matera 2019 calendar of events to discover all the Circus+ performances (see the special section).

Circus+ is realized in collaboration with Circostrada European Network and Circus Next European Label and supported by Embassy of France in Italy and Institut Français.

Three hundred volunteers, male and female, an important part of the city’s population, who wanted to add their contribution to the realisation of not just an event, but the first stretch of an itinerary that will last the whole year. Three hundred people, all different, who by participating unveiled the meaning of the word community. It is their faces, their words, their looks, all different and unique, that tell in the best way how 19 January represented the important confirmation of new community bonds, a new way of living and crossing through the area.

It is an identity that was built through the sharing of spaces and actions, that integrates without absorbing, not flaunted but serene. There is a retired woman who found it natural to work hard for her city, after having seen it change over the past fifty years. There is a man who smiles and talks about how his first thought when waking up was to put on his volunteer’s sweatshirt and welcome his Dutch guests so they could feel at home. And there is also a boy who, in collective participation, glimpses the possibility of a rebirth that involves everyone, none excluded.

The bet on involvement was the most difficult to win. The volunteers, all of them, showed that collectivity can move together, can find, not in one day but along a road, a common land of exchange and enthusiasm and so become a community.

This was the positive power that invaded the city, from Cava del Sole to the food-laden tables in the neighbourhoods, from the information points to the roads animated by musical bands. Each and every volunteer took part in the successful conclusion of a moment that they could feel as their own, a collective rite created by many different individualities and many different histories.

The enthusiasm and power of this new open and evolving community represent one of the fundamental resources, precious blood, needed to complete the itinerary that has only just begun.

And if pride is to be highlighted, is to tell about what kind of air was breathed in by the volunteers, it has to be taken at its most joyous meaning. No retreat into themselves, but an extraordinary desire to open and welcome. An enthusiasm highlighted by the continual reference to Europe, a concept that returned constantly in the words of those who worked hard so that this day could be successful. “Matera embraces Europe,” said a moved, tired but happy volunteer before the curtain fell on the opening ceremony. Then again, Matera is Europe, and will be so a bit more from now on. Matera is the European Capital of Culture, also thanks to these wonderful three hundred people.

More than 50,000 people poured into the streets on 19 January to celebrate the opening ceremony of this extraordinary 2019 during which Matera will be the European Capital of Culture.

Three days of celebrations that gave a preview of what we will see throughout the whole year. There were plenty of important moments during a ceremony that lasted 72 hours and which had already started on Friday 18 with Matera Alberga and the artistic installations of Filippo Riniolo, Dario Carmentano and Alfredo Pirri in hotels, respectively Locanda di San Martino, Le dimore dell'Idris and Corte San Pietro. The project, devised by Francesco Cascino and curated together with Christian Caliandro, recreates the neighbourhoods of long ago in the most suggestive structures of the city, immediately giving local and temporary citizens an important moment of sharing. Then came the itineraries for visiting the city, marked by light installations from the Lumen/Social Light project, followed together with the other European Capitals of Culture that attended the Opening Ceremony.

The presentation of 19 January started with Open Sounds, presented by Doris Zaccone, Filippo Solibello and Francesco Giorda. It was a moment when the Lucan and European bands, directed by maestro Giovanni Pompeo and followed by the State Police band – which also included musicians from the Arma dei Carabinieri and the Guardia di Finanza – animated the restored Cava del Sole by playing Ode to Joy, one of the symbols of the European Union, in front of around 5,000 citizens.

The great institutional symposium, presented by Marino Sinibaldi from Radio3 with the interventions of the authorities, among which the European Commissioner Tibor Navracsics and the Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, was held inside the multifunction space of “Serra del Sole”, which was presented to the city for the first time with the on-stage performance of harp player Giuliana De Donno and the Bulgarian soprano Valya Balkanska.

1600 band musicians then flowed into the 12 districts of the city involved in Open City, the second moment of the Ceremony, when the colours and symphonies of all Europe accompanied the 1500 meals served on tables that were filled by the citizens. With Open Lights 2500 lit candles reflected the starry sky in Sassi. It was a moment that catalysed the emotions of the morning: the hypnotic gazes of the citizens looked towards the scenic design of Sassi lit up by a thousand tea lights, accompanied by two polyphonic choirs (Cantori Materani and Pierluigi da Palestrina) which, from Piazza Duomo, echoed into Sasso Barisano. From there a moon-shaped hot-air balloon, visible from all of Sasso Barisano, moved upwards, accompanied by the acrobatic performance of Compagnia dei Folli. Open Show was dedicated to the RAI live presentation, that was presented by Gigi Proietti and in which important guests such as the singer Skin, the actor Rocco Papaleo, the composer Stefano Bollani took part, without forgetting the exhibitions of the Supernova company and Arturo Brachetti.  

Almost 5 million viewers in Eurovision and live coverage on Facebook from all the Enit headquarters in the world took part in this great moment, which ended with the inaugural salutations of the Italian President Sergio Mattarella, who reminded those present of the value of Matera as a symbol of Southern Italy that wants to renew.

With Open Future the parade of bands, the performance of the lit horses of Compagnie des Quidams and the celestial air carillon of Transe Express enchanted the packed and exultant roads of the centre.

The last moment of the Ceremony was filled by Open the Night, with 12 bars in the city that remained open until the first light of dawn. The natural closing of these 3 extraordinary days of celebration ended on Sunday 20 January, with the inauguration of the exhibitions Mater(i)a P(i)etra and Ars Excavandi in Matera and with the celebration of the Lucan districts with the performance of the hosted bands.

Titolo link 1: Information of Public Interest, Security and Accessibility

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https://www.matera-basilicata2019.it/en/press/press-releases/1713-matera-2019-opening-ceremony-19th-january-information-of-public-interest.html

The curtain goes up on our extraordinary year.

From the morning on, bands coming from all the villages in Basilicata and from Europe will enliven the city, marching with their instruments on the 19th of January, although three days of celebrations will take place in Matera during the entire weekend of the Opening Ceremony.

Here is the full program of the weekend of the Opening Ceremony of Matera European Capital of Culture 2019 starting from 18th of January until 20th.

SIGHTS MAP OF THE OPENING AND USEFUL INFORMATION

THE PROGRAMME OF THE OPENING WEEKEND

18th January
Discover the light installations of Lumen | Social Light and the artworks of Matera Alberga

Prior to the opening ceremony, discover the city and its new artistic and luminous installations. Two projects reflecting the heart of Matera 2019, with citizens at the centre!

Lumen | Social Light
curated by Giovanna Bellini and Open Design School
Project supported by Enel and Calia Italia

Fifteen original light installations, to illuminate the past and the future of Southern Italy and create new ways to explore the city. Lumen rediscovers the ancient tradition of street illuminations, built by the local community and renowned specialised companies from Southern Italy. Guided tour whilst places last. To discover the Lumen light installations, tours departing from Porta Pistola at 6:00 pm.

Matera Alberga
curated by Francesco Cascino and Christian Caliandro
in collaboration with Consorzio Albergatori Matera and Municipality of Matera
Project supported by the Carical Foundation

Contemporary art leaves the museums and moves to spaces that have always been a symbol of hospitality between inhabitants of a city and its visitors: hotels. With installations of contemporary art that evoke the ancient neighbourhoods of the Sassi of Matera, the Matera Alberga project reflects on the relationship between contemporary art and everyday life.

Visit the art Installations and meet the artists from 11.00 to 5 pm: Alfredo Pirri at Corte San Pietro, Filippo Riniolo at Locanda di San Martino and Dario Carmentano at Hotel Dimore dell'Idris, all located in the “Sassi” area.

19th January
Opening Ceremony of Matera European Capital of Culture 2019

A full day of celebrations throughout the city to kick-off the year as European Capital of Culture! The entire region of Basilicata comes to Matera and Matera welcomes Europe: 2019 musicians from capitals of culture all over the continent and regional towns and villages will unite and perform in the streets of Matera. From the Cava del Sole, to the residential neighbourhoods and up to the Sassi, the city will be filled with music, lights and colours!

The program of the day

1_Open Sounds / from 10:00, Cava del Sole

All citizens are invited to the opening ceremony at the Cava del Sole with music and anthems from all over Europe. On stage Filippo Solibello from Radio 2 and Doris Zaccone from Radio Capital, presenting the performance of the first 14 bands, 7 from Basilicata and 7 European.

Cava del Sole will be open to the public from 9.30 to 11.30. The road to Cava del Sole will be closed to cars. There is an organized shuttle service leaving at 9.00 (last departure at 10.45) from Zona Paip 2 (zona mercato) and from Piazza Matteotti.

02_Open City / from 13:00, Rioni di Matera (neighbourhoods)

Borgo La Martella (Teatro Quaroni), Serra Rifusa (Parrocchia Maria Madre della Chiesa), Villa Longo (Associazione Anziani Uniti di Matera), San Pardo (Guinness Pub), Piccianello (Scuola Primaria Marconi), Spine Bianche (Parrocchia S. Pio X), Serra Venerdì (Scuola Primaria Pascoli plesso Nitti), Lanera (Scuola Primaria Padre Giovanni Semeria), Cappuccini (Caritas), Agna-Le Piane (Casino Padula), San Giacomo (Scuola Bramante Piazza degli Olmi).

Musicians will bring Matera to life and be welcomed to the neighbourhoods by locals in a great convivial moment. The city becomes home: as the doors of houses, schools, parishes and associations are opened to welcome the bands.

03_Open Lights / from 16:30, Sasso Barisano and Sasso Caveoso - Piazza Duomo

As the sun goes down, the Sasso Barisano, like a meteor, will sparkle with thousands of lights; the voices of two polyphonic choirs will resonate from Piazza Duomo and in contrast the technological installations of Lumen/Social Light will shine from Sasso Caveoso.

04_ Open Show / from 19:00, Piazza San Pietro Caveoso

Musical performances will be conducted by Stefano Bollani with both national and international guests on stage whilst live on RAI presented by Gigi Proietti after the greeting from the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella. A spectacular show of fireworks will follow.

Please note that this part of the Ceremony has limited access for security reasons.

05_Open Future / from 20:00

A party on the move The show will spread from the Sassi to the alleys and streets, under the stars and in the bars, with performances by national and international artists. A great procession of 2019 musicians into the streets of the city: from Via Ridola, via del Corso, to Piazza Vittorio Veneto.

From 5pm to midnight shuttle service will be provided from Zona Paip 2 (zona mercato) to Piazza Matteotti.

Music venues, bars and clubs will be hosting dj sets, live music shows and performances during the whole night.

OPEN THE NIGHT
After-party bars

1806 Cafè - Via Lucana 238
Swinging to 2019
Dj set by Babysan: swing, rock'n'roll, 60s beat and vintage sound

Area 8 - Via Casalnuovo,15
Gigi Procino & Rocky Labarile + PLAY!GROUND LIVE NORDIC with Aarhus Band
Dj set Nu Disco-Funky-Deep House

Bollicine - Via Casalnuovo, 18
Swing for Matera 2019
Live swing music with Di Marzio Band

Mosto - Via D. Ridola, 18
Dj set with electro music marked by contamination of ethnic music

I Due Sassi Cafè - Piazza del Sedile, 24-25-26
Rockin'Sassi
Country, swing e rockabilly with Crash Boom Bang.
Special guest: Antonello Gravela

Birrificio 79 - Via delle Beccherie, 56
Capital Night Party
Dj set by Debora & Dario: jazz, soul and hip hop

Agriristories - Via Sette Dolori, 62
WUNDERKAMMER, Basilicata in a room
Contemporary Art and vernacular performance. Music by folk band Matera

Donna Bruna - Via Madonna delle Virtù, 29
Matera in Jazz
Jazz, soul, r&b with Overwander

Grieco Collezioni Donna - Via XX Settembre, 22
"Profumo di Donna della Magna Grecia"
Art Exhibition and jazz music

Loris Garage - Via Ascanio Persio, 34
Welcome Capital
Dj set house commercial

El Tablao - Via C. Beccaria, 10
"Napoli e dintorni"
Neapolitan folk music

The opening ceremony will continue on 20 th January as the European and local bands perform in the squares of the towns of Basilicata.

20th January
Exhibitions co-produced with the Polo Museale of Basilicata

ARS EXCAVANDI
curated by Pietro Laureano
“Domenico Ridola” National Archaeological Museum
from 12.00, entrance with passport

The first main exhibition of Matera 2019 will open after the opening ceremony, dedicated to the history of underground cities, a shining example for the future of our planet. 

MATER(I)A P(I)ETRA
Photographic exhibition by Carlos Solito
Palazzo Lanfranchi - Piazzetta Pascoli, 1
from 12, entrance with passport

Two distant sisters united by stone: rebuilding the link between Matera and Petra, UNESCO twins, by the photographer Carlos Solito who, with video and forty paired images, unites places, people and atmospheres of two cities, weaving a network of continuous references.

Find out all the info of Public Interest, Security and Accessibility for the Opening Ceremony.

Immagine condivisione Facebook:

Il 19 gennaio durante la Cerimonia d'apertura, nel giorno in cui non solo tutta la regione Basilicata sarà a Matera ma Matera sarà l’Europa, tutti i cittadini vivranno l’esperienza di una notte senza precedenti: quella che inaugurerà l’anno di Matera Capitale Europea della Cultura 2019. Nella notte più lunga per Matera, tutti i locali pubblici avranno la possibilità di animare la città con intrattenimento musicale (dj set, live band, live set o altro - a partire dalle ore 22:00 in tutti i locali pubblici e in possesso di relativo permesso SIAE).

Queste iniziative entreranno a far parte del programma di una giornata che diventerà orgoglio per tutti i cittadini e al tempo stesso opportunità per gli esercenti. Gli eventi serali proposti saranno inseriti nel programma ufficiale della cerimonia d’apertura e nella relativa mappa. Oltre a questo gli esercenti avranno anche un supporto sull’immagine coordinata identificativa della loro partecipazione (i.e. vetrofania) e un coordinamento generale che garantirà alla cerimonia un’offerta variegata di momenti e di generi musicali. 

Gli esercenti che intendono manifestare il proprio interesse a partecipare alla chiamata dovranno far pervenire all’indirizzo This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., entro e non oltre il giorno 7 gennaio 2019, l’apposita istanza di interesse accompagnata da breve descrizione dell’evento e dettagli di luogo, orari e capienza massima, inviando il modulo allegato compilato nei campi richiesti. Dovranno inoltre partecipare all’incontro di raccordo dell’iniziativa, che si terrà presso la nostra sede in via La Vista n. 1 il giorno 8 gennaio 2019 alle ore 16.00.

Con questa chiamata la Cerimonia d’apertura del 19 gennaio sarà impreziosita dalle iniziative private di intrattenimento creando un’atmosfera perfetta per emozionarsi e lasciarsi trascinare dalle vibrazioni che dal 19 gennaio daranno il là a 48 settimane di appuntamenti.

Manifestazione d'interesse per proposta evento musicale

There had to be light, and indeed there was. On 19 December hundreds of citizens wanted to celebrate the last mile, those thirty days that separated the city from the opening ceremony that will officially make Matera the 2019 European Capital of Culture. The last approach to 2019 was lived as a collective experience through light in Casino Padula, location of the Open Design School and the symbolic place of the Matera 2019 road.

This is why it was chosen to host one of the fifteen Map Pointers, light installations inspired by the tradition of tea lights and positioned in the most diverse areas of the city to create an archipelago of lights and stories.

The lights, those of the individual bag lights assembled by the citizens during the laboratories, and the collective ones of the drop installation, spoke with each other to create a community experience that saw, when the work was switched on, a ritual moment that was liberating and, at the same time, almost initiatory.

An end and a beginning celebrated collectively, as happens when the lights are switched on on the day when the Patron saint of the city, the Madonna della Bruna, is celebrated, and which leads, in a frenetic acceleration, to the destruction of the triumphant carriage. The current moment of passage was identified in the same manner, between the end of the preparations and the start of a crucial year for the city, before acceleration.

Lumen/Social Light was created to interpret, include and implicate. Light illuminates, shows, therefore exists only through what is already. Yet when there is nothing beyond the light, only then does it not illuminate, but is, it exists, and it takes the scene, being enough for itself. Lumen/Social Light has managed to blend these two aspects with community and individual dimension. In its collective declination, light has become a social value. It has aggregated around itself, building in a peripheral neighbourhood the real participation of the community, in a moment of transition and celebration for the whole community. The involvement of the citizens in making the light bags made it possible to fuse together the subjectivity of a material road such as production with the sense of community generated by its end: the sharing of light, its interpretation in a collective key, which sees, at the opening ceremony on 19 January, its moment of maximum realisation.

Giving light and illuminating in a different manner: this is the deep meaning of the Lumen/Social Light route, which will continue through 2019, lighting up the Matera archipelago, in perfect harmony with the principles of the INTERREG Night Light project, of which the Fondazione Matera-Basilicata 2019 and the Basilicata Region are partners.

Moments and sensations of this evening remain. The silence of the wait. The positive tension in the looks towards the installation, which hasn’t been turned on yet. The amazement of light. The applause of the moments after switching on. A collective experience that can be community, like Matera 2019.

The Lumen and Social Light projects are supported by Enel and Calia Italia.

The light bag workshops are in full flow; participants make their own luminous bags symbolising the Lumen/Social Light project, promoted by the Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation and held in the spaces provided by the Madonna delle Grazie Hospital in Matera. This is an initiative that fully responds to the principles and objectives of the INTERREG Night Light project, of which the Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation and the Basilicata Region are partners.

From the oncology department to general medicine, patients, families and volunteers are making their own light bags and, most importantly, they are fully interpreting the spirit of the project.

Workshops are held at various venues throughout the city and not just at the hospital. However it is those at the hospital that represent the achievement of a goal and full involvement of residents, which was by no means taken for granted.

For two hours, participants’ hands are hard at work making a light bag, which starts with a wooden circle inspired by the tradition of tambourines or flour sieves, and could also be seen as a way to re-appropriate their status as citizens. During the workshop, the people taking part are no longer a patient, an ill person or a supporting family member. They have returned to being an integral part of the Matera community.

They are creating light and shining their own light in the true spirit that underlies Lumen/Social Light, without those labels that often derive from their situation, whether temporary or chronic. With a light bag slung over their shoulder, they are simply citizens and nothing else.

And that's why we see the workshops that are held in places like a hospital to have a little more added value. For two hours, the walls become less thick, the lights less cold and the corridors, at least a little less tiring. And they are no longer ill people, even when dressed in gown or mask. They are just part of a community, the community of Matera 2019.

Aggiornamento del 23 marzo 2019

È in via di completamento la procedura di valutazione delle domande pervenute per l'Avviso Pubblico Residenze Matera Basilicata 2019. Sono pervenute 115 domande che testimoniano una grande attenzione per questa specifica tipologia di progetti culturali. Dato ancora più interessante è che oltre il 50% delle candidature provenga da enti che hanno sede in paesi piccoli e piccolissimi della Basilicata, in aree spopolate o a rischio di spopolamento. Dettaglio che testimonia il desiderio e la speranza di un contatto con l'Europa che Matera 2019 proverà a sostenere in tutti i modi possibili.

Il 30 marzo i titolari dei 30 migliori progetti saranno invitati a presentare la loro idea progettuale alla comunità e a collaborare fra loro e insieme a partner europei per una giornata di co-creazione seguendo la metodologia innovativa che ha già dato ottimi risultati nel lavoro svolto insieme ai Project Leader. L'obiettivo dell'incontro è quello di sviluppare i temi della mobilità transnazionale e della sostenibilità per far sì che i progetti proseguano anche oltre il 2019, nonchè ad esplorare buone pratiche e sistemi di finanziamento per i progetti di residenza artistica in tutta Europa.

Gli esiti finali dell'Avviso Pubblico saranno pubblicati nei primi giorni di aprile.

Siete un’associazione culturale, una società o una fondazione che si occupa di gestire e promuovere eventi in ambito culturale? L’Avviso Pubblico Residenze Basilicata Matera 2019 è un’occasione per trasformare le vostre idee in progetti attraverso l’organizzazione di residenze.

I progetti di residenza ammessi al finanziamento entreranno a far parte di un processo di co-creazione, un’interazione continua tra Matera 2019, i soggetti attuatori, gli artisti e le reti europee di produzione culturale con le quali verranno stretti accordi di partenariato.

Per sostenere le residenze, Matera 2019 prevede un contributo massimo di 10.000 euro per ciascun progetto presentato. Saranno ammessi i progetti di residenze destinate alla creazione artistica, di residenze di comunità e territorio e di residenze che sostengono progetti e valori del dossier. Una commissione interna ammetterà a finanziamento le proposte idonee fino ad esaurimento delle risorse disponibili. I criteri principali di valutazione prevedono il coinvolgimento dei cittadini e delle comunità ospitanti nonché la dimensione europea degli artisti indicati.

L’output finale di ciascuna residenza artistica sarà inserito nel programma ufficiale di Matera Capitale Europea della Cultura 2019.

Il testo completo dell’Avviso Pubblico è disponibile nella Sezione Amministrazione Trasparente. Per partecipare, occorre che gli operatori abbiano sede legale e operativa in Basilicata e si occupino di produzione e distribuzione culturale.
La candidatura va inviata compilando il formulario on line entro il 7 febbraio.

Tra gli obiettivi di questo avviso pubblico ci sono il consolidamento della legacy, ovvero l’acquisizione di competenze utili a strutturare un sistema di residenze che vada anche oltre il 2019, lo sviluppo della componente internazionale del programma culturale, il coinvolgimento dei cittadini residenti in aree “periferiche” e il sostegno alle reti di cooperazione con realtà europee e del Mediterraneo.

Le residenze diventeranno un momento di scambio virtuoso tra la comunità e gli artisti, favorendo l’incontro tra diverse provenienze e discipline e rendendo il luogo della residenza un centro di produzione culturale unico ma ripetibile nel tempo.

All residents in Matera and Basilicata are invited to participate in an Open Call for the dramatisation of “Purgatorio”, which will take place at Sala Levi of Palazzo Lanfranchi in Matera on 10th December 2018 at 7 p.m.. This open call is for the second part of ‘The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, PURGATORIO’ and is a Matera 2019 project co-produced by Fondazione Ravenna Manifestazioni / Ravenna Festival in collaboration with Teatro delle Albe / Ravenna Teatro and the art directors Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari.

Martinelli and Montanari have taken on the challenge to stage “The Divine Comedy”, Dante’s masterpiece that gave birth to the Italian Language. The key idea is to interpret the work by drawing inspiration from medieval passion plays and Majakovskij’s revolutionary mass theatre in which the city is the stage and the citizens are the protagonists.

The work will involve the whole city and the audience will journey through this otherworldly kingdom. Each citizen will play the part of Dante. The first part of the project titled “INFERNO”, was produced in Ravenna in 2017 and involved the collaborators and the actors of Teatro delle Albe as well as one thousand citizens of Ravenna and many people from several Italian and foreign towns.

The performance “PURGATORIO” taken from the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri will be premiered as part of the cultural programme of Matera 2019 from 17th May to 2nd June.

This project offers a not-to-be missed opportunity to participate in international meetings, to meet and build up relationships with local artists and companies of actors, in particular with IAC Centro Arti Integrate of Matera, but also with schools, universities and associations.

It will be an open-to-all call having no specific requirements in terms of number, age, language, skills, residence or nationality. It will be a big “workshop” involving volunteer citizens at various levels of participation who will carry out several tasks including: singing, dancing/movement, group acting, setting up the scenery and making costumes. Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari will be the artistic directors of this workshop, which will be held by the actors of “Teatro delle Albe”.

There will also be other experts/masters such as Edoardo Sanchi (scenery), Paola Giorgi (costumes), Luigi Ceccarelli (music), the Matera 2019 team and the Teatro delle Albe who will all take part in the project. Each citizen can choose the tasks they prefer and participate in the relative activities depending on their availability .

During this second part, information about participation, registration and the next steps to follow for the setting up of the performance event will be provided.

To participate in “PURGATORIO – Open Call for the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri” send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

It is an opportunity to have an experience of collective life in which participation evolves in artistic production.

The call “Open future delle imprese italiane” (Open Future of Italian Enterprises), promoted by Confindustria and Matera 2019, will allow 50 enterprises to be the protagonists during our extraordinary year.

In 2019 Matera and the whole Basilicata region will be a big laboratory of ideas in which Confindustria enterprises could also play a key role.

The innovative excellence of those selected from the whole Italian territory operate in different sectors ranging from culture to creativity, from tourism to ICT and from engineering to chemical-pharmaceutical sectors. Each of these enterprises will present themselves in an excellent exhibition centre for one week and will have the chance to talk about their success stories to visitors and media and cultural operators from all over the world - thereby enhancing projects and initiatives related to development, culture and the territory alike.

This initiative is an opportunity for growth and dialogue between culture and enterprise that will start in Matera and last well after 2019.

The candidate enterprises, associations and networks belonging to Confindustria that were selected are the following: Amarelli Fabbrica di Liquirizia dal 173, B HUB Factory, Antonino De Simone S.r.l., Assosistema, Belluno Dolomiti, Blulink S.r.l., Bper Banca, Cosberg S.p.A., Current Corporate, DIASEN S.r.l., Dysis, Happy Network, Readazione, Exprivia, Fondazione Bracco, Fondazione MAI, Granoro, Gruppo Giovani Imprenditori di Unindustria Lazio - Bloggers Open Future, Gruppo Giovani Imprenditori di Unindustria Lazio - Club Creatività (in collaboration with DHUB Studios), Gruppo Giovani Imprenditori di Unindustria Lazio - Mi Adotti? (in collaboration with GGI Marche and GGI Abruzzo), Gruppo Sviluppo Tessile, HOME, Irigom, Consea, IWT IAVARONE WOOD TECHNOLOGY S.r.l.,ITD Solutions S.p.A., Itel, Keyline S.p.A, Lungarotti Società Agricola, MAS, Mirvita, My Smart S.r.l.,Novartis Farma S.p.A., Opera della Primaziale Pisana, Planetek Italia S.r.l., Saccon Gomme Spa, Sun Film Group S.p.A., Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Xenia Gestione Documentale S.r.l., Punto REC, S.A.M. - Società Alimentare Meridionale srl.

The phase where the entire city is involved in preparing for the inauguration of Matera’s year as the European Capital of Culture to be held on the 19th of January 2019 is fully under way by now.

About 600 citizens have taken part in the workshops set up by Matera 2019 to create – as part of the Lumen Project presented in the bid-book – 15 light pointers similar in style to Google Maps indicators. These pointers will mark the five Matera 2019 itineraries (one per theme) as well as the main gateways to the city.

Light is also the protagonist of the Social Light Project which will involve all the neighbourhoods around the city to make “baglights”, that is to say, bags with shoulder straps that light up. About 6000 people will be making these light-carrying items in workshops to be held in different parts of Matera and Basilicata from the end of November 2018. This will enable citizens to build up trails of light in areas that have so far been conceived as anonymous and rather desolate.

Both Social Light and Lumen are activities that will “dress up” Matera in the year 2019, with the inaugural ceremony being the highlight.

Calia Italia has always operated in the area and supports the Lumen | Social Light Project. The firm will re-use leather waste from their sofa production to make the shoulder straps for the baglights, involving their Design Department and the staff of the Sewing and Cutting Sector in the perfect spirit of the Matera 2019 bid-book.

To enrol in the workshops, all you need to do is fill in the form on-line, which shows the workshops that you can choose from and the dates when they are active.

The Lumen and Social Light Projects are also supported by ENEL, globally one of the major operators in the electric energy sector, that has always been engaged in the promotion of art and culture.

Aggiornamento al 31 gennaio 2019

All’atto della verifica della documentazione per l’ammissibilità, il vincitore della selezione è risultato non avere i requisiti richiesti dall’Avviso Pubblico. La scelta della curatrice, in accordo con la Fondazione Matera Basilicata 2019, è così andata sulla seconda classificata, la fotografa ALESSIA ROLLO.
Alessia Rollo, leccese, classe 1982, fotografa concettuale, nel 2009 ha conseguito un Master in “Fotografia creativa” presso la scuola EFTI a Madrid. Il suo ultimo progetto “Dialoghi italiani” è uno dei lavori finalisti a Cormos Book Award 2018 ad Arles. Il suo lavoro è stato così giudicato dalla curatrice di European Eyes on Japan: “La sua proposta artistica si basa su un interessante storytelling fotografico che ha ad oggetto la convivenza tra tradizione e innovazione, passato e presente in specifiche aree geografiche”.

La call di selezione per una residenza artistica nell’ambito del progetto "European Eyes on Japan", ha un vincitore. Si tratta del fotografo Valerio Spada, ammesso dopo una selezione effettuata direttamente in Giappone dalla curatrice e direttrice artistica del progetto.

Un bando analogo a quello pubblicato qui il 20 agosto è stato aperto a Plovdiv per selezionare oltre a un fotografo italiano, anche un fotografo bulgaro in modo che gli “occhi europei sul Giappone” possano provenire da entrambe le città Capitali Europee della Cultura per il 2019.

L’artista è stato premiato grazie alle caratteristiche del suo lavoro fotografico con la seguente motivazione:

"La sua proposta artistica si concentra su elementi spirituali e storici, e la sua intenzione è scattare foto di una certo tipo di comunità nella prefettura giapponese prescelta, attraverso questo specifico filtro. Entrambe le prefetture sono fortemente legate allo spirito giapponese e lo spirito è invisibile, ma potrebbe esserci un risultato veramente spettacolare se può essere in parte rivelato nella fotografia. Inoltre, ha già realizzato progetti sorprendenti lavorando su comunità a Napoli e in Sicilia, quindi crediamo che Spada conosca il modo di lavorare su questo tema, anche se avrà solo un mese a disposizione. Potrebbe anche essere molto interessante vedere la differenza / somiglianza tra quelle comunità in Italia e quella che verrà fotografata in Giappone."

Le opere fotografiche saranno esposte in Italia e in Bulgaria nel 2019, in Giappone nel 2020.

Cliccando qui trovate tutte le informazioni sulle specifiche del progetto “European Eyes on Japan” Avviso Pubblico di selezione per una residenza artistica.

Maria is ten years old, but she looks no older than seven. She has big sparkling eyes. She can’t keep her hands still while telling an audience of a few hundred people how block-programming works – something she learned to use thanks to the “Heritage in Game” Project.

She looks straight into the camera and introduces the audience to the world of computational thinking in a disarmingly simple way. She speaks facing the first rows reserved for the authorities and right behind them to the huge audience of students, showing no signs of fear.

Maria, who is ten years old but looks no older than seven, perfectly embodies the spirit of the projects which Matera 2019 has set up in schools throughout Basilicata. Listening to her, one understands to what extent the goal has been reached so far.

On the 19th of November, the day at the Auditorium of Matera’s Conservatory of Music belonged to Maria and the many children and adolescents like her. “School and the Open Future” was supposed to be an event for them – and that’s exactly what it was. As the second to the last stage approaching 2019 promoted by Matera 2019 and the MIUR (The Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research), it focussed on the sharing of pathways that challenged young people with questions about how languages – digital languages in particular – are evolving.

From “Heritage in Game” with the two sectors of “Coding” and “Making”, which addressed the pupils of 60 primary and middle schools in Lucania respectively, up to the “Digital School” award specifically for secondary schools, students narrated their experiences and , most importantly, talked about what their “new” school would be like. In other words, they imagined their Open Future.

But the Matera 2019 experience involving schools does not end here. In fact, two projects were also presented – the “19 Schools for 19 Archives” project that will bring new life to the archives of Lucania, and the “Matera 3019” Project, which will enable students to imagine their territory in the next one thousand years.

Indeed, the future is the key to understanding what happened on November 19 th – a future that has got to be open, as the sociologist Stefano Laffi pointed out, and needs to be understood by means of an on-going teaching experience between generations that must start right away. It is with this aim in mind that the platform “education.matera-basilicata2019.it“ presented on that day came into being. This portal is where the story of the Matera 2019 projects activated with schools and those promoted in cooperation with the MIUR is to be told; moreover, one section is set aside for a blog – an open space for secondary school students, a place where to imagine the future and narrate the present as it is happening.

The most significant moments of the day were when Mario Bussetti, the Italian Minister of Education, University and Research, honoured the students in the audience and the many who followed the live broadcast in streaming on YouTube as he handed out prizes to the winners of the “Digital School Award”, and the Open Space Technology afternoon workshops conducted in the classrooms of the “Nicola Festa” Middle School in Matera where the students became designers of the future of our cultural heritage.

Maria is ten years old, but she looks no older than seven. Maria smiles as she says that it is nice to experiment with new things. Maria can’t keep her hand still while talking – she is already in 2019.

With the project “People have the power”, Matera 2019, along with the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation, investigates one of the most important issues facing us today. The project consists of a series of four initiatives which began in Milan on the 29th October 2018 and will continue in Brussels and Matera.

The aim of the GiangiacomoFeltrinelli Foundation is to combine real change with innovative forms of cultural entertainment. It is therefore closely aligned with Matera European Capital of Culture in its analysis of the processes of bottom-up participation and of how active citizenship based on identity and inclusive practice is able to renew communities and revitalise economies. These processes have allowed young people to become active members of society.

On the afternoon of the 29th October the inaugural presentation of the projects of Matera 2019 took place as part of a round table discussion with Spartaco Puttini, PM of the Osservatorio sulla democrazia (Democracy Observatory), Alessandro Guida, a researcher at the Osservatorio sulla democrazia (Democracy Observatory), Rosanna Prevete, PM of the Futuro del lavoro (Future of work) and research coordinator on the State and public responsibility, Luciano Fasano of the University of Milan, Giovanni Allegrettiand Michelangelo Secchi of the Centre for Social Studies of theUniversity of Coimbra, Fiorella De Cindioof the Rete civica milanese (Civil Network of Milan), Giovanni Moro of the Fondazione per la Cittadinanza Attiva (Active Citizenship Foundation), Luca Argenta of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and members of Matera 2019, including the director, Paolo Verri.

From 7 pm on, during the discussion ‘Democracy is: the power to decide’, international guests Richard Bellamy of the EUI, European University Institute, and Professor Luciano Fasanoof the University of Milan discussed how civic activism might define new forms of democracy and economy and spark ways of thinking and acting which might change reality

This is just the first instalment of a journey which will also include:

01 FEBRUARY, Brussels

Democracy is: the power to transform reality

With: Yves Sintomer –Marc Bloch Centre

27 FEBRUARY, Matera

Democracy is: the power to achieve

With: Giovanni Moro – Fondazione per la Cittadinanza Attiva (Active Citizenship Foundation)

20 JUNE, Milano

Democracy is: the power to plan the future

With: RutgerBregman – historian and writer

People have the power is a journey in four instalments which aims to investigate processes of bottom-up participation, as can be seen in the Matera 2019 “Future digs” project in the Candidature book of Matera 2019.

Is it possible to stage “The Divine Comedy”, the masterpiece that gave birth to the Italian Language?

Ermanna Montanari and Marco Martinelli, the founders and art directors of the Teatro delle Albe of Ravenna took on the challenge and will change Matera into an urban stage where all citizens will be actors, each of them playing the part of Dante. The key idea is to interpret the play by drawing inspiration from Medieval passion plays and Majakovskij’s revolutionary mass theatre.

The Public call for “Purgatorio” will take place at Sala Arcate of Palazzo Lanfranchi on Tuesday 30th October at 7 p.m.. Citizens will be able to register in order to participate in the setting up of this itinerant play that will be premiered as part of the cultural programme of Matera 2019 from 17th May to 2nd June. It will be an open-to-all call having no specific requirements as for age, language or skills. Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari as the artistic directors, the actors of “Teatro delle Albe” along with the Matera 2019 team will all be part of this exceptional collective laboratory with everybody carrying out different tasks such as singing, dancing, concerted acting, setting up the scenery, making costumes or helping with the organization.

The citizens of Matera had already answered the “call-up” of Teatro delle Albe in the first part of the project “INFERNO” produced in Ravenna in 2017 and on the occasion of the 697^th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death commemorated in Ravenna last September.

The 30th October is a not-to-be missed opportunity to meet and build up relationships with local artists and companies of actors, in particular with IAC Centro Arti Integrate of Matera, but also with schools, universities and associations. The event will mark the beginning of a journey that will take “Purgatorio” into 2019 as part of the Matera European Capital of Culture 2019 programme.

“Purgatorio” is co-produced by Matera 2019 and the Ravenna Festival - Teatro Alighieri, in collaboration with Teatro delle Albe - RavennaTeatro.

This multiplicity of voices in a work that is revolutionary at times will involve the whole city in a performing arts event where the community will play a key role in creating culture.

2018 is the European Year of Cultural Heritage – an occasion when all of Europe  celebrates the inestimable artistic value of our continent, motivating individuals to rediscover creativity and culture in order to form a new type of governance. And it is in this very special year that from October 18th to 20th Matera hosted the annual gathering of the representatives of European Capitals of Culture past, present and future, internationally known as the “ECoC Meeting”. This step marked the consolidation of an important European network that has been working on a shared model with the theme of legacy being one of the key components on which the sustainability of the programmes of the European Capitals of Culture is based.

The guests – representatives of  Liverpool and Stavanger 2008, Essen and Pécs 2010, Turku 2011, Maribor and Guimarães 2012, Marseille and Kosice 2013, Mons and Plzen 2015, Wroclaw and San Sebastìan 2016, Aarhus and Pafos 2017, Valletta and Leeuwarden 2018,  the upcoming Galway and Rijeka 2020, Novi Sad and Eleusis 2021, Kaunas 2022 as well as Plovdiv, the Capital twinned with Matera in 2019 – learned about the cultural projects of Matera 2019, becoming familiar with the voices and faces of the people who conceived them and set them up.

The Meeting started off on October 18th with a group photo to mark this significant moment of spontaneous empathy. It was an afternoon to be remembered with the members of the European Capitals of Culture that had become very special temporary inhabitants of the city and were there to discover some of Matera 2019’s original trails as part of the “People Places Purposes” Project.  At dusk, the architect, city planner and UNESCO expert Pietro Laureano presented the “Ars Excavandi” exhibition with one of the most iconic views before him – Matera as seen from Murgia Timone. From there, the guests were able to gain insight into the unique landscape that gives a visual account of the culture of cave art which inspired this project.

At Cava Paradiso, Joseph Grima announced the performance of electronic music “Cosmic Jive/ The Apollo Soundtrack” to be held in July 2019 with the great Brian Eno as the star of the evening. He then presented I-DEA, a research project on the cultural, artistic and anthropological history of Basilicata which will end with a memorable exhibition in 2019.  The tour on the first day drew to a close at the “Tommaso Stigliani” Provincial Library where the Teatro dei Sassi is working on a project entitled “Atlas of the city’s Emotions”, coproduced by Matera 2019 in cooperation with Scuola Holden of Turin. This project has already engaged over 400 citizens of Matera and therefore deserved to be counted among the prime examples of the co-creation process on which the  cultural programme of Matera 2019 is based.

On Friday October 19th, together with the Feltrinelli Foundation we attempted to answer an important question: Does participation in cultural events increase the awareness people have of their personal identity or does it further a sense of community? The debate came to a close with the presentation of the Manifesto “Parole O-Stili” whose aim it is to counter the use of derogatory language which spreads so easily on the Web nowadays.  

Following a visit to Palazzo Lanfranchi with Marta Ragozzino, the director of the Museums of Basilicata, who described the various exhibits, an afternoon of art and entertainment was held at the Open Design School. There, the guests took part in workshops conducted by the Lumen Project and, at the end of the day, an exciting  basketball game united everyone in the name of sport.

On Saturday 20th October – the final day – an in-depth look was taken into the sustainability of cultural projects as regards medium-to-long term programming and the best practices which were presented by Valletta 2018 and Leeuwarden 2018, the current European Capitals of Culture. During the second part of the morning, an agreement between Expo Dubai 2020 and Matera 2019 was signed to take Matera’s experience as the  European Capital of Culture for 2019 to the Italian pavilion at this first-time ever Universal Exposition in an Arab country.

The final moment of the EcOc Meeting was the encounter between the representatives  of the European Capitals of Culture and local families who offered to host the foreign visitors for lunch in their homes. The aim was to introduce the most quintessential culinary specialties of our tradition, telling stories connected to the recipes, thereby contributing to the “Mammamiaaa” Project’s  great archive in progress that is to be presented in 2019.

The Ecoc Meeting days in Matera have once again demonstrated that, more than any other productive sector, what still truly keeps Europe together is culture.

On the 19^th of October, Rai Cinema and Matera 2019 will offer to the public and to the international guests present in Matera on the occasion of the European Capitals of Culture gathering a special screening of “Never Look Away”, written and directed by Florian Henckel Von Donnersmark , author of “The Lives of Others”, a film which was widely acclaimed by audiences and had won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006.

The showing of “Never Look Away”, which will premiere free of charge at the Cinema Piccolo in Matera on Friday the 19^th of October at 6:30pm, was inspired by Gerhard Richter, one of the most important visual artists of our time. Based on true events, it tells a story that spans over three decades of German history, as  seen through the tormented life of a great artist.

This film was selected personally by Paolo Del Brocco, Managing Director of Rai Cinema, for its cultural relevance and was presented at this year’s 75^th International Film Festival that takes place annually in Venice. Critics rewarded the film’s distinctiveness by making it Germany’s  official entry for the 2019 Oscars  in the category of  “Best Foreign Language Film”.

For Matera, October 19^th is an exceptional social event marking the tenth step towards 2019 – once again, this city has been chosen as the site for the premiere of yet another artistic and cultural production.

ArtLab -Territories, Culture, Innovation will take place in Matera for the second year to carry out an in-depth analysis of the contribution that cultural and creative enterprises give to the enhancement of tangible, intangible and digital cultural heritage. This year, as the great event of 2019 approaches, ArtLab will mainly focus on The European Agenda for Culture, on the experiences, opportunities and prospects of sustainable tourism as well as on the assessment of its impact.

A series of workshops will start in Bari on 24th October and will continue in Matera on 26th and on 27th October with debates on the current issues related to sustainable tourism and to the new rules for cultural and creative enterprises. The first meeting entitled The development of Cultural and Creative Enterprises will experiment with co-planning in cultural and creative sectors at both European and international levels.

In the morning of 26th October several meetings will take place, among which will be the workshop entitled Understanding impact for future planning, curated by the British Council in collaboration with Matera 2019. It will provide the necessary tools to ensure that the evaluation of projects’ impact is efficient and suitable for the operational management of the activities. The workshop, held in English language, is addressed to culture professionals who can register subject to availability. The meeting entitled A new European Agenda for Culture will focus on the recent proposal by the European Commission to improve mobility, learning and education opportunities, thus encouraging young people to get involved into the civil democratic society and to enhance the role of culture in social progress and economic development in Europe. Therefore, Matera will be the main focus of an international debate on the priorities of the new European Agenda.

On 27th October the opening workshop will be addressed to Changemakers and Linkers of Matera 2019 followed at 11:00 by the workshop entitled SustainableTourism: experiences, opportunities and perspectives that will offer a great opportunity for exchange. Experts in the sector will discuss the themes related to social inclusion, protection of environmental resources and respect for the cultural values of communities and will share analyses, solutions and best practices.

These are just some of the topics selected by the World Tourism Organization in the context of the International Year of Sustainable Tourism  in 2017. The 2017-2022 Strategic Plan for Tourism sets forth four strategic guidelines for Italy to stimulate reflections and action in this sector: heritage enhancement, development of competitiveness and work, collaboration between institutions and organizations dealing with tourism, development of an offer that can meet visitors’ needs.

In this context the meeting “Sustainable Tourism: experiences, opportunities and perspectives” will suggest reflections on sustainable tourism provided by institutional, private and academic actors who will analyse case studies and experiences in the local territory. It will be a can’t-miss meeting for the people who want to know about the challenges posed by the impact of new tourist flows on a global scale.

ArtLabis the independent Italian platform dedicated to innovating policies and cultural programmes and aimed to promote the dialogue among the operators of the cultural and creative ecosystem. Initiated in 2006 by Fondazione Fitzcarraldo, it is based on a partnership of over 40 Italian and European cultural networks, national cultural institutes, municipalities/regional authorities and agencies, businesses, foundations, cultural and creative professional organizations, universities.

The complete programme is at artlab.fitzcarraldo.it.

To join ArtLab18 and sign up for the events in Matera click here.

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Materadio, the Radio3 festival, flooded the streets of Matera for three days  from the 21st to the 23rd of September  with plays, concerts and meetings  all having a common theme as a starting point –the relationship between “Global and Local”, the subtopic of “Reflections and Connections”, which is also one of the five themes contained in the Candidacy Bid-Book for Matera 2019.

An exceptional concert with a group of great artists launched Materadio’s8th edition on September 21st with Luigi Cinque on the sax, Antonello Salis on the accordion, Agostino  Cortese doing voice and bass drum and Pasquale Scarano doing voice and guitars. Somewhere in between folk and electronic music, their entire performance was devoted to the great Maestro Antonio Infantino, an unforgettable poet, musician and interpreter of the sentiment characterizing Southern Italy.

The Radio3 broadcast continued with “Fahrenheit”, a programme devoted to books and ideas with Pulitzer prize-winner Jhumpa Lahiri and Tahar Ben Jelloun pondering on the key words of this edition of Materadio, that is “global” and “local”. These concepts were approached from a cosmopolitical viewpoint of open-mindedness and acceptance of cultural differences throughout the Materadio weekend. This dialectic confrontation also found expression in the afro-beat sound of Seun Kuti, the son of the legendary Fela Kuti and when local musicians of the Ljp Big Band directed by Dino Plasmati performed with the world-famous jazz star Bobby Watson. And then again the theme was dealt with in the exchanges during the RaiRadio3 programme  “Tutta l’umanità ne parla”, broadcast live from Piazza San Francesco in Matera. There, architect Pietro Laureano, author Laura Boella and Strega prize-winner Nicola Lagioia discussed the subject of the relationship between globalization and local identity with ironic overtones, embodying the ideas of personalities of the past, namely Lévi Strauss, Hannah Arendt and Robinson Crusoe. Their discussion full of paradoxes and cross-overs touched on topical themes such as mass tourism in Matera as well as travel as an opportunity for personal growth.

“Global and Local” were also to be found in Max Gazzè’s project which brought together the sound of a symphony orchestra and that of a synthesizer in a first-ever concert performed by the Symphony Orchestra of the Conservatory of Music of Matera, the D’Ambrosio Brass Orchestra of Montescaglioso and the Great Brass Orchestra of Grottole that joined forces  on the evening of Friday the 21st in the Park around Tramontano Castle.

As for the plays on  Radio3, taking turns on the stage of Materadio were some of the best-loved actors of the Italian scene –Anna Foglietta acted out the second chapter of “Storie dal Decamerone” (Stories from the Decameron), an original play by Michele Santeramo who took Bocaccio’s work as a starting point to tell a dramatic story from the present day. Silvio Orlando, on the other hand, took  us into the pages of the novel La vita davanti a sé (The Life before Us) by Romain Gary with unlikely love stories and lives turned upside down. Nicola Lagioia, one of the voices of the programme “Pagina 3”, which reviews the newspaper pages devoted to culture on Radio3, imagined a tale made up of eight parts taking place in Lucania and Argentina performed by the actor Tommaso Ragno in a guiding thread linking Materadio to Music Design, with original compositions by Mater Elettrica, the school of electronic and applied music which belongs to Matera’s Conservatory of Music.

On saturday the R.Gervasio Auditorium was animated by a performance of the great pianist Roberto Cominati, acclaimed for his stylistically “mimetic” pianismin prestigious musical institutions known the world over such as the La Scala Opera House, the San Carlo Theatre, the La Fenice Theatre and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (Florence May Music Festival). “Fahrenheit”, a Raodio3 afternoon programme devoted to books and ideas, hosted Nadia Terranova and Nicola Lagioia in remembrance of the writer Alessandro Leogrande, while in the first part of the broadcast, the writer Gianrico Carofiglio reflected on the responsibility that must be taken for what is written and said, not only in politics but also in everyday life.

In “Hollywood Party”, actor Valerio Mastrandrea and film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf engaged the audience in a wide-ranging conversation about cinema, culture and contemporary art, full of curiosities, taking the audience off the set course.This programme was preceded by Radio3 Scienza with two exceptional women – the astrophysicist Sandra Savaglio and the mathematician Sara Lucente who, in dealing with landscape geometry described Matera as the world’s most “fractal” city. The broadcast was followed by a concert with Greta Panettieri, one of the most eclectic voices on the international scene.

The last day of Materadio began with the notes of Bach in a performance by the violinist Francesco D’Orazio, was followed by Davide Enia, the protagonist of a monologue entitled “Scene dalla frontiera – l’abisso” (Scenes from the border –the abyss) and came to a close with Moni Ovadia’s performance of  “Senza confini: ebrei e zingari” ( Without borders – Jews and Gypsies).

In the Materadio Village set up with temporary structures created by the Open Design School School, Materadio guests met the public for book signings and meetings alongside the presentation of projects jointly produced as part of the cultural programme, all supported by the work of volunteers for Matera 2019.

Materadio’s ample off-programme began at Palazzo Lanfranchi on September 19th with the inauguration of the exhibition “10 Photographers for 10 Museums” showing photographs by Michele Battilomo, Luca Centola, Alfredo Chiarappa, Mario Cresci, Federica Danzi, Francesco La Centra, Cosmo Laera, Pierangelo Laterza, Francesco Radino e Angela Rosati and curated by Polo Museale della Basilicata (Museums of Basilicata Syndicate). On Thursday 20th , producer Claudio Trotta from Milan,who in the course of his career has worked with the world’s top most musicians from Sting, David Bowie, Iron Maiden, Aerosmith, Kiss and most notably Bruce Springsteen, presented his latest book No Pasta No Show at the Materadio Village. MateradioOff came to an end on Sunday 23rd, first with two showings of the film “The Fabulous Tricker– on the Road with Antonio Infantino”,  made in cooperation with the Lucana Film Commission, all sold out at Cinema Piccolo. This was followed by “Matera Encounters – Ljp Big Band meets Bobby Watson” whose evening performance exhilarated the audience in Piazza San Francesco.

Once again this year Materadio has proved to be an important event and a useful opportunity to observe and understand how Matera is preparing for its historic appointment with 2019, after having accompanied the city for the past 8 years on a journey where culture is the mainstay for civil, economic and social change.

The ECoC Family Meeting is coming to Matera!

European integration occurs though a dialogue between cities, allowing new experiences to be shared and for everyone to feel part of a great change in the history of our continent. A change in which Matera is now the key player on the intercultural scene.

Like every year the ECoC (European Capitals of Culture) meet for a large gathering called the ECoC Family Meeting,which this year will be held right here in Matera.

It will be a chance to meet and network with international guests whilst being given the opportunity to present our cultural programme for 2019 in front of all of Europe.

This is the spirit with which a huge, city-wide community lunch will be held on Saturday the 20th of October, hosting all the representatives from the capitals in the houses of Matera’s citizens, in repetition of the successful experiment carried out in 2014 with the 5 members of the Commission, who, using the very same formula, evaluated Matera during its phase as candidate for European Capital of Culture 2019.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

Please fill in the form by the 3rd October 2018.

For further information please write to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The ECoC family meeting coordination team will evaluate applications over the following days and will announce which families have been selected by the 5th October 2018.

Together with the one or more representatives that you decide to host for lunch, there will be a Matera 2019 representative for each family, who will help you choose up to a maximum of 6 other guests.

The ECoC Family Meeting is the chance to show off our extremely hospitable attitude to Europe and to exchange information on the opportunities Europe offers us in the world of culture, labour mobility and volunteering, with the aim of making them ever more accessible.

Plovdiv (Bulgaria), our twin capital in 2019, Stavanger (Norway), Marseille (France), Liverpool (United Kingdom), Galway (Ireland), Umeå (Sweden), Leeuwarden (Netherlands), Aarhus (Denmark) and Rijeka (Croatia) are just a few of the cities you will have the chance to get to know through this experience.

Organise a lunch with the European Capitals of Culture and thus support international dialogue, expanding your horizons and focusing on the extraordinary opportunities which culture offers us within and without our borders!

The magic of lights brings back to mind the rituals of the age-old tradition of artistic illumination, usually used in Southern Italy to adorn our cities during festive moments.

It is from here that Lumen Social Light takes its cue, a project about light that is divided into two parts: one dedicated to the production of art works and the other aimed at involving Enel and the citizens from Matera. With new models of public illumination and the virtuous use of light, Lumen Social Light traces artistic paths that lead the tradition into the future.

Lumen Social Light is a project that re-examines the aesthetical and functional assets of urban illumination with an integrated approach, which starts with the creative blueprint that is at the base of the design process. It seeks to project the tradition of artistic illumination into the future to bring light architecture to all the areas of the city of Matera.

With Lumen, light architecture will reach all the areas of the city of Matera, in particular the city landmarks which will host the Matera 2019 cultural programme. The urban illumination was designed by light designer Giovanna Bellini,using giant illuminated map pointers, the most contemporary form of localisation on digital maps. The map pointers will be partially made by Southern Italian lighting companies and partially by the citizens of Matera, through a series of workshops which will take place at the Open Design School, one of the pilot projects of Matera 2019. Workshops will be held every Friday and Saturday in October, at Casino Padula in the afternoon and at the Istituto Professionale Statale per l'Industria e l'Artigianato "Leonardo Da Vinci" and the Istituto Tecnico Statale Commerciale e Geometra "Loperfido - Olivetti" in the morning. The workshops are already all fully booked following the enrolment campaign launched during Materadio.

The projects will be presented to the public on Friday the 5th October at 7 p.m. at the Casino Padula in Matera, the location of the Open Design School.

LUMEN SOCIAL LIGHT WORKSHOPS

LUMEN: the Lumen workshop will consist in creating the MAP pointers. The workshop will thus be divided into two phases: the first will involve traditional woodworking processes used in preparing wood for artistic illumination, in other words sand papering, plastering and varnishing, whilst in the second phase light bulbs (of varying sizes and colours) will be applied to the wooden supports, with the help of artistic illumination technicians.

SOCIAL LIGHT: the workshop will consist in assembling and personalising Lighting Kits with large-scale participation of Matera’s citizens with the aim of reaching over 5000 kits.

Where:

The workshops will be held at the Open Design School in Matera and also in other locations in the city in order to greater involve the target community, totalling 10 locations, both public and private.

When:

Map pointer workshop - 4 two-day workshops starting in October: 5th/6thOctober, 12th/13thOctober, 19th/20thOctober, 26th/27thOctober 2018 (SOLD OUT)

Self-assembly KIT workshops - 10 four-hour workshops starting in November: 1st/2nd, 8th/9th, 15th/16th, 22nd/23rd, 29th/30th November 2018.

You can sign up for a Social Light workshop from the 8th October until the end of November by sending an email to the following address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or filling in the form

Switching on– 19th Dec 2018

Second switching on– 19th Jan 2019

Self-assembly KIT workshops (monthly) starting from the 22nd of January 2019.

The Lumen and Social Light projects are supported by Enel, one of the leading integrated global electrical energy suppliers, which has always been involved in the promotion of art and culture.

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On February 10th 2018, Open Design School officially opens the doors to the community.

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The fourth step toward 2019 will be dedicated to reading. A series of events will take place in Tricarico, Matera and other locations in Basilicata from 19th to 23rd April.

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Updated on 4th May 2018
Three representatives of the community projects of Basilicata will take part in the European Neighbour’s Day held for the European Capitals of Culture in Leeuwarden 2018 from 25th to 27th May. They will be Brunella Guida, with the project Warm Up Camp, Eustachio Santochirico, the community facilitator of the Progetto Policoro and Caterina Pontrandolfo, who will tell how she has managed to involve the community in the project PeaceWomenSinging. Congratulations!
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Matera 2019 invites 3 representatives of the community projects set out in Matera and in Basilicata to take part in a three-day meeting for sharing and exchanging experiences in Leeuwarden, the European Capital of Culture 2018.

Leeuwarden-Fryslân, European Capital of Culture 2018, together with Matera 2019 organises the European Neighbour’s Day addressed to the European Capitals of Culture from Friday 25th to Sunday 27th 2018. The European citizens who have implemented a community project in their region will have the opportunity to share ideas during these three days. Motivated people and proactive citizens will work together at the weekend developing their projects, sharing experiences and networks to improve both one’s environment and the others’.
The ECoC’s Neighbours’ Day is inspired by the Neighbours’ Day, namely the annual celebration of communities that encourage people to create connections with their neighbours through local activities. The ECoC’s Neighbours’ Day, which will be held in Matera next year, aims at creating connections among European citizens, strengthening social networks and supporting their active integration.
In particular, the ECoC’s Neighbours’ Day is addressed to citizens (no more than 3 per country) who live in cities that were, are or will be European Capitals of Culture and who are involved in community projects in their neighbourhoods or local communities.
This is the reason why Matera 2019 invites 3 representatives of community projects of Matera and Basilicata to take part in these meetings that will offer them several opportunities: to strengthen their link with Europe, to learn more about the Dutch Capital of Culture, to share experiences with the citizens living in an ECoC as well as to work together in order to solve problems, develop networks and share good practices.

Who can apply?
Anyone who is at least 18 years old, lives in Basilicata, has promoted and implemented community projects in Basilicata and has a basic knowledge of English language.

Accomodation
The selected representatives will be hosted by families in Leeuwarden who have already been collaborating in the Leeuwarden 2018 community projects and will therefore work with their guests during the weekend. It will be a perfect chance to get to know each other better as well as to be fully immersed in the culture of Friesland.

Covered costs
Matera 2019 shall cover the travel expenses of the selected participants. Leeuwarden 2018 shall cover the transfer from the airport as well as board and lodging.

How to apply
Fill in the form  and send it by Monday 9th April 2018 by 12:00 a.m. of. The projects’ assessment will be completed within a few days and the results will be communicated by Sunday, 15th April 2018.
Selection criteria
The projects showing a wide involvement of communities and even small improvements in the context of reference will get higher scores.

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From 26th to 29th March Matera hosted the meeting on “Night Light”, the Interreg Europe project connected to the improvement of regional policies for reducing light pollution as well as to preserve and to enhance the night sky. The European partners of the project from Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Spain, Luxembourg, Denmark and Slovenia attended the meeting.

The main objectives of Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation and the Basilicata Region (the only Italian partners of the project) are: to exchange good practices for the definition of guidelines on lighting projects in natural parks which can combine design and technology; to start up the process for an international acknowledgement of dark skies in natural parks (i.e. the certifications “Starlight Destination” and “Dark Sky Park”).
Moreover, the project aims at identifying new opportunities for promoting astrotourism in the parks of Basilicata also in conformity with Matera 2019 programme, which foresees the implementation of some projects of the cluster “Dark Skies” focused on night sky, astronomy and reduction of light pollution. These projects aim at enhancing darkness and silence, two precious resources of Basilicata, which are at risk of extinction due to media saturation and excessive lighting of modern cities.

During the meeting we involved several communities of the Basilicata Region which had the opportunity to present their activities to the European partners: the Park of the Rupestrian Churches of Matera, the Astronomical Observation Centre in Anzi,the Space Geodesy Centre of Matera, the Regional Park of Gallipoli Cognato, the Tourist District “Terre di Aristeo”, the Centre of Environmental Education (CEA) of Matera and Montescaglioso, Onyx Jazz Club, MaterElettrica and the Conservatory of Music E.R.Duni of Matera. Moreover, we started sharing information and good practices with the group Pibinko from Tuscany with the aim of a future collaboration. The group will organise an international symposium on preservation and enhancement of night sky in Capraia next September. We took our guests to Castelmezzano, the Regional Park of Gallipoli Gognato, the Astronomical Observation Centre in Anzi where we were fascinated by the observation of stars in the night sky, the Park of the Rupestrian Churches of Matera with its centre of environmental education and finally the Space Geodesy Centre of Matera.
A document summarizing the views emerged during these days alongside the recommendations by the experts has been drawn up.
For further details you can visit the site.

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In March 2018 Confindustria and Matera Basilicata 2019 Foundation launched the call “Matera 2019: the open future of Italian enterprises” addressed to 50 enterprises, in particular SMEs, to make them the protagonists of Matera European Capital of Culture.
The project aims at promoting the innovative enterprises that use culture to enhance their competitiveness as well as fostering the dialogue between culture and enterprise. The selected enterprises will be among the ones in Italy that have an innovative vision which combines economic, territorial and cultural factors and focus on innovation, cohesion and competitiveness.
The call is an opportunity to bring out the businesses that are able to make culture an integral part of the creation processes of the territorial economic value. In the ever-growing and ever-changing Italian scenario these realities have increased and become more and more competitive. The enterprises set up a constant dialogue with society and the citizens and, together, build up a future relying on mutual learning, creativity, shared values, thus fostering development where culture, product and territory are smoothly combined. Finally, this initiative will enhance the public debate on the innovation-driven link between economy and culture. 

The selected enterprises will have the opportunity to use an exhibition space, specially reserved and offered by the Matera 2019 Foundation, to present their activities to the world throughout 2019 on a weekly basis. The call is limited to the enterprises and associations joining the Confindustria (Italian employers’ federation) and to the business networks associated to Retimpresa.
The preview, that will be held in Matera, and the first event in Bari will start this journey throughout the Italian regions to make Confindustria enterprises aware of the several opportunities offered by Matera 2019 to the companies working in the cultural and innovation sectors.

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Matera 2019 will have the pleasure to host the lectio magistralis by Ulrich Fuchs at Casa Cava on 26th March at 6:30 p.m..
Professor at several European universities, Fuchs boast a significant experience in the issue of the European Capitals of Culture. From 2003 to 2005 he worked as the project manager of the team that prepared the candidacy of Brema as the European Capital of Culture in 2010; from 2005 to 2010 he worked as the artistic manager of Linz 2009 and from 2010 to 2014 he was the deputy artistic manager and general manager of Marseille-Provence 2013. Since 2014 he has been the president and one of the panel members of the European Commission selecting and monitoring the European Capitals of Culture.
Fuchs’s lecture will dwell on the new identity of the European Capitals of Culture as well as on the new approach that the European Commision uses to select the European Capitals of Culture. He will also focus on the vision and the operative difficulties characterizing ECoC projects. 
Moreover, the lecture will deal with the risks and the opportunities for the European Capitals of Culture. Fuchs will also talk about his direct and human experience 10 years after Linz 2009 and 5 years after Marsiglia 2013.
The lecture is the last step of the build up process of Makers&Linkers consisting in the consolidation of their skills. 40 senior and junior Makers and Linkers were selected to be the professionals of the cultural management and production (Makers) and experts in involving the public (Linkers) for Matera 2019.
Opened to the public, Ulrich Fuchs’s lecture will be live streamed on Matera 2019 Facebook page.

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“Dalla comunità alla community – From the community to the Community platform”: the title explains the real scope of the initiative which was organised by Matera 2019, Uisp Matera (Italian Union for Popular Sport), Unione delle Proloco and Twitteratura and will take place at the Open Design School (Casino Padula, Agna Le Piane) on 18th and 19th March.
The event represents the third step towards 19th January 2019, the day of the opening ceremony of Matera European Capital of Culture 2019.

The 18th March will be dedicated to the celebration of the project “SportAntenne” supported by Uisp Nazionale and promoted also by Uisp Matera. Since November 2017 150 migrants, who are hosted in the Reception Centres of Basilicata as beneficiaries of the Sprars (System for the Protection of Asylum Seekers and Refugees), have been involved in several sports activities with the aim of fighting against discrimination. During the day a variety of games and sports activities will be carried out in the outdoor and indoor spaces of Casino Padula. The activities will involve the participants, local associations and the whole community.

The physical community will pass the torch to the digital community: on 19th March at 6:30 p.m. the new Community platform of Matera 2019 will be presented to the public. It is an open space where citizens can suggest projects to be implemented in the ECoC year. The final goal of the site, which is accessible by everyone and open to Europe, is to learn how to design projects together. At Casino Padula people will be shown how the platform works, its mission, its objectives and the game rules.
After the presentation enlivened by a glass of wine, the community will gather round the traditional bonfires in honour of Saint Joseph set up by the inhabitants of Agna Le Piane neighbourhood along with the parish of San Giuseppe in Matera.
This tradition, which is celebrated in Matera and throughout Basilicata (Barile, Montescaglioso, Tursi), will be narrated on the web thanks to the Matera 2019 webteam volunteers, makers and linkers, to the partnership with the UNPLI (Union of the Tourist Boards of Basilicata) and to the community of Tw Letteratura, the Italian association that disseminates literature using Twitter language. The result will be the collective narration of a popular tradition, a ritual marking the end of winter, the return of the sun and the start of the new season. Following the common practice of Matera 2019 Community, everyone can join the narration, from every place of Basilicata. You just have to share tales about bonfires, poems, music and stories of rites of passage with the hashtag #fuochidicomunità.

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Matera 2019, in collaboration with Unesco Youth Committee, has organised a packed programme of events on 23rd and 24th February,on the occasion of the European Year of Cultural Heritage (promoted by the Mibact).
About 200 participants from all over Italy will take part in conferences and congresses, activities open to the public and workshops organised by Matera 2019 and Unesco Youth Committee.

The programme also includes the exhibition “Trecento’19 – Duemila’19, 319 copertine d’autore della «Lettura» per Matera capitale europea della cultura 2019 (319 front pages of “Lettura” by artists for Matera European Capital of Culture 2019)” organised by Matera Basilicata 2019 Foundation, Fondazione Corriere della Sera and the Museums of Basilicata. It showcases the first 319 front pages of the cultural supplement to the «Corriere della Sera», published from 13th November 2011 to 7th January 2018.
On 24th February at 10:00 a.m. at Casa Cava international guests will take part in the public conference on the theme Tourism in the days of sharing economy: utopia or dystopia?

On Saturday 24th February, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:30, Matera 2019 organised People, Places and Purposes with the aim of trying out new ways for making visitors experience the people of the city alongside its places and monuments. It is an itinerary exploring places, people and projects of Matera 2019 for their tangible and intangible heritage. The itinerary is made up of several steps from the Sassi up to the neighbourhood of Agna Le Piane in the Southern part of the city. Registration is required due to the limited availability of places.

PROGRAMME

Friday 23rd February

3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. 
Opening Ceremony of “Unesco Italian Youth Forum”
Auditorium Gervasio

The new course / approach of #UNESCOgiovani, Paolo Petrocelli
Motivational speaker: Pierluigi Sacco
25 years since Matera was designated a Unesco World Heritage site: Vito de Filippo, Undersecretary of MIUR (Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research - Luisa Montevecchi, Director of Servizio I, Coordination –UNESCO Office- Marcello Pittella, President of the Basilicata Region- Raffaello De Ruggieri, Mayor of Matera - Aurelia Sole, President of Basilicata - Matera 2019 Foundation - Mariano Schiavone, Director of APT (Local Tourism Board) of Basilicata

European Year of Cultural Heritage 
Motivational speaker: Fabio Maccione, Senior Public Affairs Manager Flixbus Italia 
Speakers: Lorena Aldana, Member of the European Cultural Heritage expert - Marta Ragozzino, Director of Museums of Basilicata - Paolo Verri, General Manager and Serafino Paternoster, Press Office Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation (Focus “Città invincibili”) - Teresa Gualtieri (FICLU-Italian Federation of Clubs Associations and Centers for Unesco- responsible for the implementation of Agenda 2030 in Italy)

Young People for Heritage 
Motivational speaker: Adama Sanneh, co- founder Moleskine Foundation 
Speakers: Tommaso Murè, UN Youth Delegate – Italy - Giuseppina Del Marco, UN Youth Delegate – Italy - Manon Champier, PhD candidate and You-tuber «C’est une autre histoire»

7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Opening of the exhibition “Trecento'19 – Duemila'19 - 319 copertine d'autore della «Lettura» per Matera capitale europea della cultura 2019” (“Three-hundred’19 – Two-thousand'19 - 319 front pages of “Lettura” by artists for Matera European Capital of Culture 2019”)
Museo Ridola
Organised by Matera Basilicata 2019 Foundation, Fondazione Corriere della Sera and the Museums of Basilicata, the exhibition showcases the first 319 front pages of the cultural supplement to the «Corriere della Sera», published from 13th November 2011 to 7th January 2018.

Saturday 24th February

10:00a.m. - 12:30 a.m.
Tourism in the days of sharing economy: utopia or dystopia? (curated by Matera 2019)  
Casa Cava
Guests:
Raffaello De Ruggieri –Mayor of Matera
Francesco Tapinassi, Manager of the Tourism Department – MiBACT, Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism,
Tommaso Sacchi, Head of the Cultural Secretariat, Curator of Estate Fiorentina 
Rossella Tarantino, Development and relations manager, Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation
Ottavia Ricci, Expert Counsellor for sustainable tourism policies, MIBACT(Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism)

Case Study: Claartje van Ette, City of Amsterdam 
Moderator: Emmanuele Curti
5:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
"People, places and Purposes" (a cura di Matera 2019)
An itinerary exploring places people and projects of Matera 2019 for their tangible and intangible heritage. We would like to try out a new way of making visitors live the city focusing not just on the places (“the monuments”) but also on the people who live the places and make them alive, as well as on what happens there, especially in view of Matera 2019.

Limited places available. Booking required at link.

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The Build Up process for strengthening the skills of the 40 selected senior and junior Makers and Linkers of Matera 2019 starts on 16th and 17th February and ends in March.

The process foresees meetings with national and international experts on the themes of Community building, European dimension, Tourism and culture - sustainability, Audience development, Great events, technical management and security, Management.

A key moment will be the Lectio Magistralis by Ulrich Fuchs, a German university Professor who since 2014 has been one of the panel members of the European Commission selecting and monitoring the European Capitals of Culture. Matera 2019 is honoured to have him in town and to have the opportunity to appreciate his inspiring views of the future and Europe.

The process for skills enhancement will make Makers and Linkers acquire a common language linked to the vision of Matera 2019 and to the development and implementation of projects. The main beneficiaries are the young people under the age of 30, with the aim of investing in their growth and creating a nursery of experts who will be able to use the acquired skills in Matera and in the South of Italy also after 2019.

At the end of the process a register will be created for professionals in the cultural  management and production (Makers) and for experts in public involvement (Linkers) and made available for both Matera 2019 and every implementing body of the cultural programme according to their specific needs.

These resources will have consolidated international management skills along with a strong bond with Basilicata and the South of Italy which will make them sensitive to the local context.

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On 19th February Matera 2019 will organize the volunteer party at the Palasassi in Matera to launch an open campaign for the recruitment of volunteers.

The role of volunteers is a key role for the European Capitals of Culture as well as for all towns hosting international events.
Since the very beginning Matera 2019 has relied on the valuable job and significant participation of a large number of volunteers who have contributed to the organization of events and guest welcome. Moreover, during the candidacy phase the outstanding on line webteam significantly contributed to improve Matera 2019 reputation and to disseminate the values and initiatives of the European Capital of Culture 2019 for a wider public.

Matera 2019 is an opportunity for the growth of the South of Italy through culture. The South that does not ask for anything but rather offers the opportunity to set up networks, to design projects with the territory and with the local creative community, influenced by European experiences and exported to Europe as end products. The Volunteer 2019 project aims at offering thousands of citizens the possibility to be the main characters of Matera 2019 dedicating a little but significant part of their time. The Volunteer Party will be an opportunity to find out how to participate in initiatives and to thank those who have already supported us.

On 19th February, from 9.am. to the evening internationally-renowned street artists will perform live outside the “Palasassi” to make an “en plein air” Artists like Caktus& Maria, DPC, Gods in Love and Daniele Geniale will work both individually and in team using spray cans, brushes, masks and stencils. The young students of the Arts High School “Liceo Artistico Levi” and the primary school Pascoli (located at via Nitti) will paint murals, thus giving a better and friendlier place back to the town.
The event, open to the public, will start at 7 p.m. and it will be hosted by the famous journalist and radio-TV presenter Carlo Massarini, who brought forward music fashion and trends. During the first part of the event several examples of local, national and international volunteering experiences will be presented by the volunteers who have already collaborated with Matera 2019 and other European Capitals of Culture, in national and international festivals and events along with those who collaborate with local associations.
Later in the evening, the Manifesto of Matera 2019 volunteers will be presented along with exceptional guests belonging to the world of music, sports and culture. The event will be enlivened by the well-renowned Lucanian actor Rocco Papaleo, who represents Basilicata, the athlete Consuelo Mangifesta, champion of the Matera Female Volleyball Team (PVF) that boasts unforgettable successes and made Matera be on the world scenario. The artists Roy Paci & John Lui involved in the L-Train project, will play beautiful music during the event along with Krikka Reggae. 
Don’t miss it!
Entrance is free on a first come first served basis.

PROGRAMME

From 9:00 a.m. to p.m.
Street art with Caktus& Maria, DPC, Gods in Love and Daniele Geniale.
From 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
The Volunteer Party
hosted by Carlo Massarini

Volunteering experiences of Matera 2019, Aarhus 2017, Wroclaw 2016, Festival of Literature in Mantova, Expo 2015, FAI Basilicata, CSV Basilicata
Presentation of the Manifesto “Il volontario di Matera 2019” (The Matera 2019 Volunteer)
Guests: the Lucanian actor Rocco Papaleo and the athlete Consuelo Mangifesta
Music bands: Roy Paci & John Lui with the project L-Train and Krikka Reggae

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Exactly one year before the opening ceremony of Matera 2019 that will be held on 19th January 2019, the big celebration “Meno uno” (“One more year to go”) will start the cultural “worksite”.

On the 19th and 20th of January, everyone will be called upon to join the cultural “worksite” for 2019 and help build a monumental cardboard construction, designed by the visual artist Olivier Grossetête.

The monument to participation and sharing will be raised by the citizens themselves, people of all kinds and ages. The transient construction will be raised by participants who will assemble cardboard boxes without any machinery or pulleys.

This European-wide performance art work shares similarities with the traditional papier-mâché float created annually in Matera for its most famous Festival of the Patron Saint “Madonna della Bruna”. A performance with great symbolic value for the project Matera 2019 as well as for the whole city.
In fact, after working together as one to give life to the construction, the citizens will dismantle it and recover the materials to be recycled.

The construction of the cardboard structure will begin in Piazza Vittorio Veneto on 19th January at 10:30 a.m. and will continue until dusk. At ‘19:19’ (7:19 p.m.) a show will turn the “worksite” into the location for a great collective celebration with Antoine Le Menestrel and music by Max Casacci and Ninja (from Subsonica) with their project Demonology HiFi.

On 20th January at 10:30 a.m., as on the previous day, the square will be transformed into a great stage overshadowed by the towering construction. The Lucanian creative communities selected for implementing half of the cultural programme of Matera 2019 will get on the stage to explain to the audience how the citizens will be involved in the several upcoming projects. The event will be followed with live broadcasts by national radio.

The community will also play a leading role in the preliminary step of the event by taking part in workshops for making the cardboard bricks needed to raise the big piece of architecture. The workshops will take place at the Mediateca Provinciale from 15th to 18th January in the morning and in the afternoon and they will mostly be addressed to students of the schools in Matera and to local associations coordinated by the staff of Matera 2019. In the next days a more detailed program will be published.

The countdown beginning on 19th January will have a monthly schedule: on the 19th of each month, we will organise a big happening involving both residents and temporary citizens, as a test to the culminating events of 2019.

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On the night of 29th September, the Sassi and the streets in the centre of Matera will be transformed into a kaleidoscope of lights and sounds by Dreamland, an event that celebrates the cultural identity of Matera and of the whole of Basilicata in places which best symbolise tradition.

Dreamland stages the return of customs and traditions, unveiling the uniqueness of Matera through its inhabitants. It is this involvement of local people that characterizes the cultural ecosystem of Matera 2019.

During this very special night a collective and participatory parade will actively engage the audience along two different routes that will leave Piazza Vittorio Veneto at 10 p.m. to head towards Piazza San Pietro Caveoso.

Dreamland offers up an unprecedented “soundscape”, a brand new musical landscape which retrieves sound elements from the roots of the community thanks to the Bandarmonica dei Sassi - BAS –who will debut with an orchestra made up of 22 musicians from across the region.

The BAS –created by Nando Irene, produced by Matera 2019, directed by Claudio Mola and Pasquale Gravela, and with Antonello Gravela and Gianni Grilli playing the brass instruments – will be split into two bands: the rhythmic band of Caveoso and the harmonic band of Barisano.

Participants can decide which of the bands they want to support.

When the bands arrive in Piazza San Pietro Caveoso, the first actual concert by the Banda Armonica dei Sassi will take place on the purpose-built platform.

At the end of the concert, the Band will leave the square performing on a cart pulled by mules. The parade will be characterized by large papier-mâché masks made by local craftsmen and representing typical local anthropomorphic figures. It will also be accompanied by traditional musical instruments such as the “cupacupa”, which will be played in unison by all the citizens, giving a rhythmic crescendo that will take us back to the deep roots of this land.

Characters from Lucanian mythology produced in Raffaele Pentasuglia’s atelier, artists of “Lacaposciuc” directed by Michele Lampiao Noviello, as well as the one hundred earthenware “cupacupa”made by Rino Locantore and played by the citizens will all accompany the Banda.

You can register for the art workshops directed and curated by Raffaele Pentasuglia, which will be held on 27th, 28thand 29 th September from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. The first 50 people to register via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. will be able to take part in the workshop to make the large papier-mâché masks used during the parade.

Irony, colours and fun will take over the streets of Matera in the name of proudly preserved traditions but also with a prophetic vision of future languages of street art.

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Updated on 24^th April 2018

The call for proposals "Patrimonio in gioco" (Heritage games) addressed to schools was very successful. In fact, we received applications from 60 schools from the whole region of Basilicata. The first 19 schools will start the project in May and, following the guidelines of the Board of Directors, the project will involve all the other applying schools in September.

The 19 schools starting the project are listed below:

All schools applying for the project are displayed on the map. Click here to view the map in full screen mode.

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On the occasion of the  European Year of Cultural Heritage and under the memorandum of understanding signed with the MIUR (Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research), Matera 2019 promotes a project for the enhancement of cultural heritage in the primary schools of Basilicata with the collaboration of the Local Education Authority.

19 schools of Basilicata (14 primary schools and 5 secondary schools) will be involved in working out a broader nuance of the concept of “Heritage” from a new perspective, thus making it easier to be understood.

THE PROJECT

Coding

The classes of the selected Primary Schools will carry out an in-depth study on the themes related to the territory, namely on the women who have made their mark on the history of places and on the landscapes especially the less popular ones. The schools will produce a digital animated cartoon using the free opensource software SCRATCH for the development of Computational Thinking and Coding. The pupils will attend a 3-hour training course for two days held by experts in the field in order to develop the project on their own with the help of their teachers. The projects will be published on the Scratch site to allow anyone to carry out both a general and an artistic remix with open licence.

Making 

Secondary Schools classes will reimagine obsolete objects characterising their territory and will create them with a 3D printer. Students and teachers will attend a 4-day training course for about 4 hours per day held by experts of the Open Design School and a training session with an artist who will provide unusual perspectives to contaminate and re-interpret the digital artifacts. The files of the 3D modelling, with open licence and format, will be published on Matera 2019 open data catalogue to disseminate their largest use and reinterpretation, also artistic, by any web user. Each school will be granted a 2,000-euro fund for the purchase of a 3D printer.

HACKATHON

On 19th November 2018, the 19 selected classes will take part in an event organised by Matera 2019 within the European Year of Cultural Heritage and promoted by MiBact. The participants will be involved into a great digital marathon (Hackathon) in which they will take up the challenge, together with artists, makers and illustrators, to make the tangible and intangible cultural heritage largely available with the help of new technologies.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

All primary and secondary schools of Basilicata which want to participate can fill in a form online and send it to: http://bit.do/patrimonioingioco by 21st April 2018. The list of the selected schools will be published on 24th April 2018.

The selection will be made by an ad-hoc panel made up of Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation and the USR (Local Education Authority) of Basilicata according to the following criteria:

• Distribution on the territory taking also small towns and villages into account
• Creativity and originality of the project proposal

The training for primary and for secondary schools will be carried out in May and in the first decade of June on the dates that will be agreed on with the person in charge of the project in each school.

 Call for proposals Patrimonio in gioco (Heritage Games with Primary Schools) 

Read more ...

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On 8th and 9th May Matera will celebrate Europe Day in collaboration with Materahub. It will be a remarkable occasion for building up a broad open debate on what European citizenship means, in terms of identity and values rather than only in a formal  sense, highlighting the new opportunities Europe offers. We will meet girls and boys as they are the ones who hold Europe’s future in their hands.

PROGRAMME

Tuesday 8th May  from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
"Bar Europa" with the students of the schools of Matera
Burbaca – Via XX Settembre, 14, Matera

«Europe is mainly a café full of people and words.» This idea gave birth to the format “Bar Europa” as conceived by Michele Gerace, who will enliven the debate on this occasion.
Expert in European Union policy and laws,  Michele Gerace is the President of the O.S.E.C.O (Osservatorio sulle Strategie Europee per la Crescita e l'Occupazione -  Observatory for European Employment and Growth Strategies) and the host of the namesake radio programme within the Rock Night Show broadcast on Radio Godot.

Wednesday 9th May from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 a.m.
Matera 2019, Europe to us and we in Europe
Aula Magna at Liceo Scientifico “Dante Alighieri” in Matera

Co-design workshop with the high school students in the 4th and 5th grades of the schools of Matera aimed at building new opportunities of connection to Europe in the ECoC year. The meeting facilitators will be Raffaele Vitulli from Materahub, Stefania Clemente from the Comincenter, Lucia Ygritte member of the association B-Link, Giuseppe Colucci member of Associazione Mt-Europe, Rossella Tarantino and Massimiliano Eustachio Burgi from the team of Matera 2019.

Wednesday 9th May at 5:30 p.m.
Getting to know Europe, Europe we want – side-event
Sala Levi at Palazzo Lanfranchi

Exhibition and conference curated by UNITEP (University for the Elderly and for Permanent Education) and sponsored by the DICEM (Department of European and Mediterraean Cultures) of the University of Basilicata and by the Museums of Basilicata.

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Theater is the protagonist of May 19: many appointments for "Di Palco in Palco" (From stage to stage), a day that brings the audience closer to live shows with a focus on theater for children. The initiative is carried out together with the Polo Museale della Basilicata (Museum of Basilicata), Teatri Uniti di Basilicata, Sat (Show Art and Territory) and Italia Festival.

Among the events of this day also some initiatives of "Maggio all'infanzia 2018", the Theater Festival for children which takes place in Matera from 12 to 27 May in different places. The complete program is available on maggioallinfanzia.it

In the evening we offer to the public of children and adults the live-media opera "Dökk", a production by fuse* and the activities organized by the Polo Museale della Basilicata as part of the national event "Notte dei Musei" (Museum Night).

All shows are free admission.

PROGRAM
10.00 am
Palazzo Lanfranchi - Sala Levi
"Fuori dagli schemi: i festival come luogo dell’innovazione tra periferia e metropoli. Il ruolo dell’Europa"
Conference for operators organized by Italiafestival in collaboration with Teatri di Bari, Matera 2019, Teatri Uniti di Basilicata and Agis.

11.00 am and 5.00 pm
Chapiteau - Tramontano Castle
Thomas Noone Dance
MOLSA (Spain - Catalonia)
from 8 years (*)
Based on the book "Molsa" by David Cirici. Direction and choreography: Thomas Noone. Assistant director: Nuria Martínez. Dancers: Joel Mesa and Paula Tato, Pierfrancesco Porrelli and Eleonora Tirabassi. Actor: Blai Rodriguez. Drawing and production of puppets: Martí Doy.

11.00 am and 7.00 pm
Chiesa del Carmine (Church of Carmine)
Farrés brothers
TRIPULA (Spain - Catalonia)  spettacolo annullato
since 5 years (*)
By Jordi Palet Pep Farrés Jordi Farrés. Dramaturgy: Jordi Palet i Puig. With Jordi Farrés Pep Farrés. Directed by: Jordi Palet i Puig. Scenography and puppets: Jordi Enrich, Farrés brothers i cia, Alfred Casas.

7.00 pm
Auditorium "R. Gervasio"
UNA DISUBBIDIENZA STRAORDINARIA "Extraordinary disubblence" - by IAC
since 11 years (*)
Text by Elsa Morante from "Il mondo salvato dai ragazzini" (The world saved by the kids). Directed by: Andrea Santantonio. With Nadia Casamassima

8:30 pm entrance and at 9:00 start
Duni Theater
DÖKK - a production by fuse*
live-media opera
Highly immersive and multisensory dance and digital art performance in which the synchronic interaction between the choreography, the body of the performer and the digital visual and sound projections stimulate in the audience a deep empathy, even compared to what happens beyond the physical space.

9:00 pm
Palazzo Lanfranchi Museum - Cloister
GIOVANI BAND DI MATERA (YOUNG BANDS OF MATERA)
In collaboration with the Student Council of the Province of Matera.

9.00 pm
Domenico Ridola National Archaeological Museum - Garden
SERATA IN MUSICA (EVENING IN MUSIC)
With Aldo Bagnoni and Co.

(*) For these shows it is advisable to book at Teatri Uniti di Basilicata Via don Minzoni, 38 Tel 0835 337220

TIM main partner of the initiative.

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On the occasion of the Move Week 2018 - the European week promoting physical activity - the event Open Playful Space, a co-production by Matera 2019 and Uisp Basilicata, was held in Matera to promote spontaneous creativity generated by art and sports in urban contexts.

Open Playful Space started in Marconia on 28th May with street sports performances and workshops including street riding and skateboarding organized in collaboration with the association Basilicata Board. The event was carried on in the parks of Matera involving walking groups and low-impact exercise organized by Ecos Uisp and the association Raggio di Sole.

On 31st May Open Playful Space carried out a workshop on Parkour with Laurent Piemontesi at Borgo La Martella, a five-a-side football tournament and gave a presentation of the project Uisp “Welcome” at Piazza San Francesco followed by the Oriental practice of Qi-Gong. At the weekend the park Giovanni Paolo II, which is a popular meeting place commonly named “il boschetto” (the little wood), became the setting of Open Payful Space to convey the idea of sports as both a value and means of social cohesion and inclusion. The park was transformed into an urban playground where under-18 basketball tournaments were organized by Uisp Basilicata in collaboration with the association Los Angeles.

Open Playful Space was a diffused event organised in several places in town that are experiencing active urban participation and development. In fact, Piazza degli Olmi was also one of the venues of the event “Basket Insieme – Summerbasket” addressed to senior players and the street art stage for students curated by Momart Gallery. The performance aimed at involving people in urban art performances to make them see “unusual” places of the city with new eyes.

Laurent Piemontesi, one of the founders of Art Du Déplacement, offered people at the “Boschetto” the chance to share the emotion of “reading” and living the city through a jump, a run and a climb while staying in balance on a wall. Until Saturday 2nd June languages, creativity and art expression featured the afternoon workshop on juggling and capoeira led by Pachamama and Lacaposciuc. 

“Carillon” was the closing event which combined music and street art in a dreamlike and visionary scenery midway between circus and music with the performance of Live Painting by Kris Rizek curated by Momart Gallery.

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Nell'agenda di giugno l'evento "Sport Stories: gol, canestri e schiacciate" di martedì 19. Anche questo mese, come in ogni 19 dei mesi precedenti e durante tutto il 2018, Matera 2019 propone una serie di eventi come tappa di avvicinamento al 19 gennaio 2019, data inaugurale di Matera Capitale Europea della Cultura.

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On 19th June, sports took the field and Matera became the stage for well-established and emerging sports activities within the event “Sport stories: gol, canestri e schiacciate (Sport stories: goals, baskets and spikes)”, the sixth step towards 19th January 2019.

Matera has always been a sports city. Evidence of it is the important national and international acknowledgements received over time, especially for the performances of the PVF Matera, which managed to redeem the whole city and bring together people sharing the passion for volleyball.

Volleyball was the protagonist of the evening theatre performance “La leggenda del pallavolista volante” with the volleball champion Andrea Zorzi. The humor of the actress Beatrice Visibelli brightened up the show that celebrated the heroic deeds of the people who supported the life and career of this myth of Italian sports. 

The show evoked memories of the victories achieved by the champions of the mythical Italian national men’s team at the time, the so-called “Phenomena Generation” and we still remember them all: Paolo Tofoli, Lorenzo Bernardi, Andrea Lucchetta, Andrea Giani, Luca Cantagalli, Andrea Gardini, Roberto Masciarelli, Marco Bracci. They were led by Julio Velasco, the “philosopher-coach”. "Il pallavolista volante" dwells on victories as well as on defeats, like the ones at the Olympics in Barcellona in 1992 and in Atlanta in 1996. Actually, sports teach how to win, but also how to lose.

Moreover, basketball has always been one of the most popular sports in town; therefore, it played a key role in the large series of events planned for the day. At the Palasassi and at the sports centre in Lanera, Meo Sacchetti, the coach of the Italy National Basketball Team met the would-be champions from all over the world during the event “Minibasket in piazza” aiming at social inclusion and gathering people with a common passion for basketball. The coach then continued his tour of the city and met the young athletes of the Virtus Matera in front of the Stadium “XXI Settembre - Franco Salerno” of Matera.

Romeo Sacchetti has been an idol for many generations and not just for the people who play basketball. He has been a mentor teaching all Italian people that no victory is possible without a strong will to gain it. Equally remarkable was the opening ceremony of minibasket at “Parco del Boschetto Giovanni Paolo II": the young athletes received the keys of the city of Matera in the atmosphere cheered up with the colours typical of each nation.

The exhibition about the 120 years of activity of the FIGC (Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio) made the sports day outstanding with hundreds of supporters trying to take a photo with Roberto Mancini and Milena Bertolini, technical managers of the Italian men’s and women’s football teams, with Alessandro Costacurta, former football player and now deputy commissary of the FIGC and with the two Materan citizens Michele Uva, vice-president of UEFA, and Franco Selvaggi, world champion as a member of the Italy National Football Team in 1982.

The exhibition showcases the most important awards gained by the Italian National Teams as well as some memorabilia, thus making people relive the history of Italy through the memories of those “magic nights”.

During “Sport Stories” the famous names in team sports promoted the ideals and values that guided them sharing their emotions with the public and making significant statements. The one that still is in everyone’s heart is Roberto Mancini’s “Let’s team up as Matera has done for 2019!”.

Each sports federation dedicated the national teams’ t-shirts to Matera 2019. The t-shirts were brought around the city along with the people chosen as symbols of the event in the most popular sports places in town thanks to the hashtag #sportstories19 spread on the social media.

The curtain fell on 19th, this memorable day, with the mystical rapture by Andrea Zorzi, the ‘flying volleyball player’, and with Matera getting closer to 2019 supported by one of the key ideas for gaining victories: teamwork.

Materadio, Rai Radio3 Festival is back for the eighth consecutive year in Matera from 21st to 23^rd September!

As in previous editions, Materadio brings together important talking points,  linking them to one of the 5 themes of the candidacy bid book of Matera, the European Capital of Culture 2019. The theme of this year’s edition  - Connections and Reflections – looks at the relationship between the local and the global, at a time when the key challenge is how to identify the principles of connection in today's fragile democracy.

Migration flows are the main connections nowadays, apart from those on the web. These are the topics most closely associated with two major personalities from the world of culture who will be paid homage during debates which will be dedicated to them during Materadio. The first is Antonio Infantino, the founder of the Tarantolati di Tricarico who broadened his network, allowing him to access main European stages with his trance pop music, a virtuous mixture of sounds and numbers built on the very ancient relationship between music and pythagorean tradition, The second is Alessandro Leogrande who gave us illuminating thoughts on the theme of the border. This challenges us to find balance in the need to build networks in a democracy at risk. The writers Nicola Lagioia and Nadia Terranova will pay homage to them. 

Luigi Cinque and Antonello Salis will dedicate a concert to the Lucanian poet and musician.

The risks and opportunities of the local versus the global will be discussed with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jhumpa Lahiri and Tahar Ben Jelloun. The visions by the anthropologist Marco Aime and the professor of genetics Guido Barbujani, will make us reflect on the meaning of the words “race” and “identity” for the community. The connections do not only link countries but also historic times. This is the reason why Pietro Laureano and Paolo Matthiae will teach us to “listen to the stones” in order to enhance the multiple nature of the identifying elements of our heritage. The reflections will be linked by a text by Nicola Lagioia . The original production will be read and interpreted by Tommaso Ragno, with live music by Matera Elettrica(La Scuola di Musica Elettronica e Applicata del Conservatorio E.R. Duni. (The School of Electronic and Applied Music of the Conservatory of Music  "E. R. Duni" of Matera.

Materadio will also be the stage for theatre performances such as “Storie dal Decamerone – Una Guerra” (Stories from the Decameron – A War) by Anna Foglietta“”,“La vita davanti a sé” (The Life Before Us) by Silvio Orlando  adapted from Romain Gary’s novel Davide Enia with a preview of his theatre play L’Abisso. Other guests at Materadio include the writer Gianrico Carofiglio, the scientists Sandra Savaglio and Sandra Lucente and the actor Valerio Mastandrea at the microphone of Hollywood Party.

The major evening shows will start with Bobby Watson, the American saxophonist and icon of modern jazz, who will play alongside the jazz guitarist Dino Plasmati and his Ljp Quartet. The artist Max Gazzè will be the leader of a unique project drawing together musica colta and pop music. He will present two specific projects: one with the symphonic orchestra of the “Conservatorio of Matera” and the other with the band of Montescaglioso and Grottole. On Saturday evening Seun Kuti, son of Fela Kuti, and the new champion of the afro-beat music, will perform with his band.

Materadio will end with a tribute to Plovdiv, the city that will share the title of European Capital of Culture 2019 with Matera. Moni Ovadia will perform the show “Senza confini: ebrei e zingari” (WithoutBorders: Jews and Gypses). 

This is a very special edition of Materadio, with many live Radio 3 broadcasts directly from Matera previewing the main event of 2019, the year when 50 weeks of programmes, shows, major exhibitions and productions will make Matera the capital of Italy and of Europe for a year. 

Once again this year, as part of Materadio, the Mediateca di Matera, in Piazza Vittorio Veneto, and the Materadio Village in Piazza San Francesco will house the Rai Porte Aperte, Project in collaboration with the Basilicata Rai Office. Rai opens its doors to all students to show them the professional skills involved in the world of Rai.

This year, Materadio is also a diffuse event with an Off the Air program  in a buzzing city that for one entire week will entertain and amaze with an incredible range of events, performances and experiences alongside the official program.

Materadio is a Rai Radio 3 initiative co-produced by Matera 2019.

Matera 2019 is supported by 

Tim (the Main Partner)

Bawer, Calia e Saicaf (Official Suppliers)

Amaro Lucano(Essential Partner)

Trenitalia (Official Carrier)

Check out the complete programme on Matera Events! 

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On Friday 11th May at 6.30 p.m. we will present the final outcomes of the workshop “I luoghi di Matera 2019” at Casino Padula. The project, implemented by Matera 2019 and the Open Design School, explores the locations that may potentially host events in 2019 and afterward.

On this occasion, a small exhibition  will be inaugurated to showcase images, maps and files related to the large mapping research which did not only focus on the historical center of Matera but also on the outskirts and on the whole region of Basilicata.

Including about 400 mapped locations, the project provides both technical and visual information of each place and highlights their huge potential. In accordance with the principles of the open culture, "I Luoghi di  Matera 2019” employs the open source software to display all locations as dynamic  points on a digital map.

Further information on the professionals who contributed to the workshop are available on the Open Design School blog.

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