Great idea from Bergamo's GAMeC: an online course in civics and art education

It is often said that civic education is lacking in Italy, or that it is not taught enough in school: one can therefore very positively welcome the idea of the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAMeC) of Bergamo, which has decided to start a series of online lectures on civic education and art, mainly dedicated to high school classes, but also open to the entire public. They will be held every Saturday, from November 28, 2020, to January 23, 2021, at 10 a.m. and will feature, as speakers, several experts (including Pier Luigi Sacco, Luca Mercalli, Carmen Leccardi, Don Gino Rigoldi, Filippo Pizzolato, and Nando Pagnoncelli), who, taking as a starting point the works on display at the exhibition Ti Bergamo - A Community, will explore several important themes: Right to Culture, Ecology and Environmental Law, Gender Rights, Solidarity and the Welfare State, Right to Health, Constitution, Borders and International Law.

The lectures in the series, titled Aula Magna. Art, Citizenship and the Constitution, will be presented in the context ofGAMeC’s Aula Magna, the room within Ti Bergamo ’s exhibition itinerary made up of decommissioned desks and designed to host students and teachers from Bergamo’s classrooms every morning in the Gallery, to address the themes covered in the exhibition and conduct, in parallel, lessons on art and civic education. A choice that, the museum explains, is aimed at bringing the public closer to the places of culture while restoring the idea of the museum as a place of permanent education. With the closure of the museums due to the new lockdown and the consequent interruption of the in-person lecture program, the Aula Magna has been reinterpreted in order not to lose its central role as a place dedicated to education and has thus become a non-physical but digital space from which to explore, with the guidance of expert speakers, the themes of civic education through some of the works on display in the museum’s halls.

The exhibition Ti Bergamo - A Community, which opened at GAMeC on Oct. 1, was born out of the emotional short-circuit triggered by the convergence of dramatic events and gestures of solidarity that arose in the city during the most acute phase of the health crisis. Through works of art and productions from below, photographic images, films, gestures and thoughts of those authors who, recently or in the past, have interacted with the Bergamo community, the exhibition has as its focus the bonds between people, civic sense and solidarity. Among the exhibition’s intentions is also to raise resources for Cesvi to support an important project dedicated to the city’s most vulnerable children, thus reaffirming the museum’s fundamental role in supporting its community.

Returning to the series, the lectures, of about 40 minutes each, will take place on the Zoom platform and, as mentioned, will be open to schools and a limited number of members by reservation. The meetings will be recorded and disseminated later through GAMeC’s digital channels. Registration will be to be done online at the GAMeC website, by Thursday of the week of the meeting. For more information, write to servizieducativi@gamec.it.

Below is the schedule of appointments.

November 28, 2020
Theme: Right to Culture
Project: REC - Awareness campaign to raise funds to support access to online education (2020)
Speaker: Pier Luigi Sacco, Full Professor of Economics of Culture, IULM University Milan and Head of Venice Office, OECD

December 5, 2020
Topic: Ecology / Environmental Law
Reference work: Conversations with a hunter gatherer on walks to the mountains (2020) by Michael Höpfner
Speaker: Luca Mercalli, Climatologist, science journalist; President of the Italian Meteorological Society

December 12, 2020
Theme: Gender Rights
Reference work: Dance Dance Dance (2017) by Olimpia Zagnoli
Speaker: Carmen Leccardi, Full Professor of Sociology of Culture, Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milan-Bicocca; Director of the inter-university research center Cultures of Gender

December 19, 2020
Theme: Solidarity / welfare state
Reference work: Everyday Poster (2020) by Adrian Paci
Speaker: Don Gino Rigoldi, Chaplain IPM Cesare Beccaria of Milan

January 9, 2021
Theme: Right to health
Reference work: Virus Diary (2020) by Dan Perjovschi
Speaker: Filippo Pizzolato, full professor of Institutions of Public Law at the University of Padua and professor of State Doctrine at the Catholic University of Milan

January 16, 2021
Theme: Constitution
Reference work: Word is always the vanguard of action (2018) by Julian Rosefeldt
Speaker: Nando Pagnoncelli, president of Ipsos

January 23, 2021
Topic: Borders/International Law
Reference work: Thank God for Immigrants (2020) by Jeremy Deller
Speaker: to be determined

Image: The room dedicated to the Aula Magna project within the exhibition Ti Bergamo - A Community. Ph. Credit Lorenzo Palmieri

Great idea from Bergamo's GAMeC: an online course in civics and art education

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