Florence Academy Gallery, University of Florence students narrate the museum's paintings

The Galleria dell’Accademia of Florence and the Department of History, Archaeology, Geography, Art and Performing Arts - SAGAS of the University of Florence present the In punta di pennello project, which will involve students in a program of activities, research and study, aimed at the enhancement and dissemination of the Museum’s collections, through a social campaign, which will be online from Wednesday, April 5, on a weekly basis. The challenge has been to bring a highly specialized art historical education into dialogue with the new expressive languages of communication, with the intention of reaching an increasingly wide audience.

"In punta di pennello," said Cecilie Hollberg, director of the Accademia Gallery in Florence, “kicks off a new collaboration, this time with the University of Florence, which again sees young people at the forefront. Already with the students of the Accademia di Belle Arti we have had the opportunity in the past to carry out various successful initiatives such as Radio Accademia. With this particular project, on the other hand, we have challenged students from the School of Specialization in Historical Artistic Heritage, who have engaged in the short narration of some pictorial works from our collections. We are very pleased with the results and invite you to follow us on our social channels!”

The project was created as part of the “Museum Communication and Didactics” course of the School of Specialization in Historical Artistic Heritage taught by Professor Chiara Lachi and was developed together with Elvira Altiero, Art Historian Officer of the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence. It takes the form of an exercise that goes ’beyond theory’ to engage students in something concrete and useful for their future profession. It aims to promote and raise awareness of the Gallery’s Italian painting collection, which boasts masterpieces from the 13th to the 19th century, through the creation of an art historical content communication campaign on the museum’s social channels.

Each student, twenty-three in all, was assigned a work on which to create an informative text, ranging from artists of various ages and fame (from famous masters such as Pontormo, Lorenzo Monaco and Perugino, to lesser-known ones such as Giovanni del Biondo or Eugenio Prati), different techniques (frescoes, panels, canvases) and types (from small trittichetti to counters intended for individual devotion, to monumental altarpieces from major Florentine churches).

"In punta di pennello,“ says Elvira Altiero, ”is part of the actions undertaken by this Directorate to make the Gallery’s extraordinary collection of Italian painting known to the general public. In this project, which I worked on with Chiara Lachi, we deliberately stipulated that each student would find his or her own stylistic figure for the communication, precisely because the campaign plans to give space to multiple voices. Each text is presented as a carousel post, in which the writing is accompanied by a sequence of scrolling images with the details of the picture, with the aim of guiding the reader to observation, giving information, arousing interest, curiosity and insights."

“As a lecturer in the course in Museum Didactics and Communication,” added Chiara Lachi, "I always try to propose to my students and students an exercise that goes beyond theory and makes them try their hand at something concrete and useful for their future profession. This is why I am really happy with the collaboration with the Academy Gallery, which allowed this initiative to happen. At the tip of the brush (the title of the campaign is the result of a collective brainstorming process) led students to reflect and choose a key to interpret works of art in order to elaborate a communication that can arouse curiosity, attract interest and be understood by all. A great challenge that transported them from their university desks to the pulsating life of the museum!"

Image: Perugino, Assumption of the Madonna and Saints, detail (Florence, Galleria dell’Accademia)

Florence Academy Gallery, University of Florence students narrate the museum's paintings

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