Art-Connection in Italy

Istituto Luigi Sturzo (ILS)

Istituto Luigi Sturzo is an Italian cultural foundation specialized in the cultural and heritage sectors.

Founded in 1951, the foundation is one of the first Italian institutions to have worked for the opening of the country’s cultural heritage to the general public.

Today, ILS conducts interdisciplinary research related to culture to address the challenges of citizenship, globalisation and European integration.

Role in the Art-Connection project 

Istituto Luigi Sturzo contributed to all intellectual productions and was responsible for the 1st deliverable (State of play). ILS was responsible for the organisation of the 1st dissemination event which took place in Rome on September 22, 2021.

Referent of the Art-Connection project in Italy:

Loredana Teodorescu – PhD, Head of European and International Affairs

ILS action research

See the Art-Connection case studies from participatory action research in the territorial contexts of partners in the Toolkit for Cultural Connectors, chapter 2.2 and the UNhandbook from ILS – Working on cultural heritage

The proposed action research aimed to implement an explorative-descriptive study to demonstrate how culture and art can be instruments of social cohesion and, more specifically, be explored in the context of intergenerational dialogue in order to facilitate learning and self-directed-learning processes and more broadly the implementation of competences.

To this end, two themes were identified on which it was possible to focus action research using and enhancing the immense bibliographic, historical and visual heritage of the Istituto Luigi Sturzo: leadership and European integration. Strategic issues for context, identified in the city of Rome.

The main objective was indeed to conduct action research capable of verifying and validating the inspiring hypotheses of the EU Community project, to experiment with new learning and self-directed-learning techniques through creative research tools (visual, artistic, performative research) and digital procedures such as video and image editing, the collection of visual stories. The project also aimed to develop a research model that could be replicated in other contexts or at different levels.

The field research involved three types of audiences:

• young people: about fifteen young volunteers involved in the civil service applied to the cultural sector of Rome (at Istituto Luigi Sturzo and other cultural institutes) to develop the research project
• the trainers who accompanied the young volunteers during the main stages of the research, through mentoring techniques, with the staff of Istituto Sturzo
• the local community.

The experiment carried out during the Art-Connection participatory action-research was so successful that ILS intends to replicate it to accompany the change in the practices of Italian cultural institutes.