Following the success of Ultracolli’s first artist residency dedicated to music—curated by Ultracolli, coordinated by Inabita in collaboration with Borgofuturo, with mentorship from Iosonouncane and tutoring from Michele Duscio—still underway in Loro Piceno, Qui Val di Fiastra, Olobionte presents two new Artistic Residencies, dedicated to Performative and Visual Arts.
The Olobionte residency program is designed to weave contemporary creativity with the villages, landscapes, and traditions of the Val di Fiastra, aiming to build new forms of relation among the involved communities. The term “Olobionte,” from which the project takes its name, denotes a form of collective life in which the host organism lives in symbiosis with the community of microorganisms that inhabit it. The residency thus becomes an opportunity for artistic and cultural exchange that transforms the Val di Fiastra into a distributed laboratory where nature, stories, and people dialogue, giving rise to new forms of collective and shared imaginaries that weave the framework for a future way of living.
Olobionte consists of four cycles hosted in the valley’s villages, each dedicated to a different expressive language: the first cycle, focused on music, is currently underway in collaboration with Borgofuturo; the second focuses on performative arts, in collaboration with Teatro Rebis; the third centers on illustration and visual arts, in collaboration with Ratatà; and the final cycle is dedicated to cinema, in collaboration with Officine Mattoli. Each residency lasts three weeks and hosts three artists, who are provided with a village accommodation in Loro Piceno, a production space, a stipend, and reimbursement for meals, transport, and production of works. Participants are also guided throughout the project by mentors who are experts in their respective fields.
From October 27 to November 16, in Loro Piceno, the second residency will begin, dedicated to the Performative Arts. For the residency program, the artists will be supported by Antonio Rezza and Flavia Mastrella, Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale in 2018—a duo that since 1987 has redefined the performative language beyond the boundaries of theater. In particular, Rezza and Mastrella will lead an inaugural masterclass on October 30, 2025, at the Pinacoteca Comunale di Ripe San Ginesio from 3:00 to 6:00 PM and will oversee the development of the creative processes through online meetings.
The artists will work in the provided production spaces, with rehearsals at the theater in Loro Piceno and a final presentation at the theater of Sant’Angelo in Pontano, in addition to the use of other equipped alternative spaces. The path will also be guided by tutors Andrea Fazzini and Meri Bracalente, founders of Teatro Rebis, a company active since 2003 that interweaves place valorization and visionary stage research. The focus will be on the originality of the creative processes, engaging in dialogue between contrasts and resonances among the individual and the collective, the local and the global, the rooted and the destabilized.
The Olobionte Residency path continues with the Visual Arts residency, from November 17 to December 7, 2025. Open to illustrators, cartoonists, animators, and all artists interested in exploring and experimenting through line and drawing, this residency will be mentored by: Francesca Ghermandi, cartoonist and illustrator whose stories and illustrations have been published since the mid-1980s in Italian and international magazines including Frigidaire, Echo des Savanes, Linus, Zero Zero, Il Manifesto, L’Unità, La Repubblica, Internazionale. In 2006 she created the animated opening for the Venice Biennale Cinema, and in 2022 provided animations for Silvia Gribaudi’s dance show Mon Jour. Roberto Catani, an illustrator and animator repeatedly selected for Bologna Children’s Book Fair illustrator exhibitions, whose animated films have been selected and awarded at major national and international animation film festivals. Finally, Alleg, a scholar and prominent figure among the early generation of Italian muralists who helped redefine public space, whose work—imbued with reflections on modern times—aims to restore the sense of happiness where social contexts and opportunities for gathering are most complex.
The mentors will introduce the work with a series of formative days at the opening and supervise the creative production remotely. Participants will also have in-person technical and artistic support from tutor Nicola Alessandrini, artist and artistic director of Ratatà festival, and professor of public art at the Academy of Fine Arts of Macerata. Participants will be encouraged to develop works rooted in the territory, capable of giving voice to people, places, nature, and stories that animate it. A creation that goes beyond mere drawing, transforming visual and narrative stimuli into an authorial story that reflects a living, recognizable, and shared context.
The Olobionte Artistic Residencies will conclude with a final Cinema residency scheduled for March 2026, led by mentor Daniele Gaglianone, director, screenwriter, director of photography, and editor, and with tutor Lorenzo Raponi, an expert in directing and editing and active at Officine Mattòli Productions since 2014.
Photo credits: Loro Piceno, Qui Val di Fiastra. On the cover Roberto Catani
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