Next Wednesday (7/2) Lecture by Giovanna Segre. Economy and Culture

Giovanna Segre is assistant professor of Public Finance at the Faculty of Economics of Turin University, where she teaches Economics of Culture and Public Economics. She also collaborates with EBLA CENTER – International Center for Research on the Economics of Culture, Institutions, and Creativity – of Turin University. Her research focuses on cultural economics and welfare economics.

[Site]

One day at Cittadellarte: Topics

1. How do economists define culture?

One definition of “culture” given by David Throsby (2003) refers to the set of attitudes, practices and beliefs that are fundamental to the functioning of different societies and groups defined in geographical, political, religious, or ethnical terms. Culture thus finds its expression in a particular society’s values and customs, which evolve over time as they are transmitted from one generation to the next. Accordingly, culture is both tangible and intangible. The stock of tangible cultural capital assets consists of buildings, structures, sites and locations endowed with cultural significance (called “cultural heritage”) and artworks and artifacts existing as private goods, such as paintings, sculptures, and other objects. Intangible cultural capital includes the set of ideas, practices, beliefs, traditions and values which serve to identify and bind a given group of people together, however the group may be determined, together with the stock of artwork existing as public goods in the public domain, such as certain instances of literature and music. We will discuss this approach and some others.

2. Culture and economic development: which relations?

In industrialised countries, an increasing number of goods and services incorporate an essential, intangible added value deriving from design, aesthetics, and symbolic and identity values: the key elements of today competition, when competition cannot take place through costs cutting. Recent economic literature explicitly considers the role of culture and intangibles in fostering economic development and identifies the main factors involved. Within this context, we will analyze a new approach where the creative value chain, starting from the pure cultural artistic dimension, drives economic systems in the field of applied research and creative production. Culture works as a systemic “activator of innovation” through its impact on people’s willingness to invest in the development of their cognitive competences, in a virtuous circle that endogenously sustains the supply of new creative products. Technology alone cannot lead to sustained innovation in the long run; ‘core’ cultural activities and cultural investment are needed.

3. The “3 T” theory by Richard Florida

In the past few years there has been a stream of new literature on the issues of creative cities and culture-led local development. In particular, books by Richard Florida (2002, 2005) have sparked a considerable amount of interest in the potential of local policies aimed at attracting talented creative workers, high-tech firms, creative minorities, and so on. We will discuss weak and strong elements of this theory.

Uni-topia:Video Lecture_01 with Kyohei Sakaguchi (artist, musician, writer)

“0yenhouse!? – A New Direction in Archtecture”

As a part of Unitopia project, UNIDEE 2008 residents are hosting a skype conference on June30th from 16:30.

Sakaguchi Kyohei is an artist based in Japan. Sakaguchi’s first and second books document “homeless” people’s amazingly efficient, human-scale, ecological housings in Japan, which are made out of the materials found in the streets (it’s very common that “homeless people build their houses on river sides, public parks etc in Japan). Sakaguchi kind of opens up a dialogue that has never been discussed, which is, he finds that “homeless people’s lives” are advanced, ecological, self-sufficient with full of creative ideas. The discussions of “homeless people’s issues” have been always, whether you are coming from right wing or left wing point of view, about whether to get them out of the streets. He definitely gives us a fresh perspective when both sides of “homelessﾓ people’s issues never think of them as someone who practices the most creative way of living.

In this video conference between Biella and Tokyo, Sakaguchi will discuss human-scale, DIY style architecture and a way of living, especially through one homeless man, Mr. Suzukiﾕs life.

[Artist Profile]
Kyohei Sakaguchi was born in 1978, in Kumamoto, Japan. While he was enrolled in Architecture Department, Waseda University in Japan, he became interested in informal architecture, which eventually led him to publish the book “0yenhouse,” a documentation of creative and unique “homeless” people’s houses. Following the success of his first book, he published another book titled, “Tokyo 0yenhouse” in which he investigates and documents one homeless man’s life. Sakaguchi also exhibits his work nationally and internationally.
Kyohei Sakaguchi_www.0yenhouse.com

[Date&Time] 2008.06.30 16:30 -
[Place] To be announced on Monday.
[Language] English

Kyohei Sakaguchi

Bystanders

This week, I went out with some of the residents. They decided to walk through the city and reached the park in front of the Mall. They wanted to do some drawing there and would eventually like to draw in the Mall itself.

I’m not from Biella. I don’t know the characteristics of people in Biella, but I can say that they are not so accustomed to either foreigners or artists. It was interesting just to look at the faces of bystanders. Some people just passed by while others stopped, but everybody was quite interested in trying to understand what was going on. One kid was a foreigner, a Roma. He came very close carrying his little brother in his arms, when he was invited to take a pen and a paper he quickly fled.

It reminded me of the meeting we had with Michelangelo Pistoletto and his thoughts about the role an artist should play in society. It is difficult whether they try to interact with the rest of the society or even if they simply sit in a park. They are always perceived to be outsiders rather than insiders and in this case they were foreigners as well. The question is: How do you open the door? How can you pretend to be part of a society and work within it if it tends to exclude you?

Francesco

Il Risotto alla Lavanda di Pietro

Ciao Tutti.

Here is the reciepie for the fanstastic lavender risotto Pietro showed us how to make last monday.

1/2 white onion cut in small pieces, then fried in about 1.5 dl olive oil until golden brown.

Add 2 kg of risoroma rice, stir.

Add the pre-prepared vegetable broth (about 2 liters) large scoops at the time but not all at one time.

Stir.

Leave to boil for about 15-20min and add the broth when the rice looks dry. Do not cover.

When rice is tender but still has firm center it is done and….

Add 150 grams of butter and 250 g of grated cheese..we used parmeganio.

The final step is to add the lavender after your tase. We used a small handful.

Eat RIGHT AWAY!!!

Enjoy,

Josefina

Xersize_01

Art and Work

/Maurizio Lazzarato

Text not available online

/WochenKlausur

http://www.wochenklausur.at/texte/kunst_en.html

/Artist Placement Group

http://www.tate.org.uk/learning/artistsinfocus/apg/overview.htm

Sakiko

First week at Unidee 2008, and it continues

First week of Unidee 2008 and first week for me at Cittadellarte. The first impression of the foundation was quite strong. Many people with different backgrounds work in the same space: artists, designers, economists, cooks… the result is quite difficult to describe. This brings a number of different points of view to the table when an issue is discussed which is a unique experience for me.

Residents arrived last week in Biella. Ideas were exchanged. Projects were shared

During the week the residents began to get to know each other and explore Cittadellarte, where they will live and work until October. There were introductions by the Cittadellarte staff on their work and the unique structure of the organization. Many doors were opened and the possibility of collaborations have begun. Michelangelo Pistoletto met at length with the residents and discussed the founding principles of the talked to the girls and boys of Unidee going deeper in his history and in the history of the Foundation

The residents showed their past works, the projects they had elaborated and they want to develop. But it was not just about their projects. They expressed interests in building connections, in starting a collaborative work to be continued after the experience at Unidee.

Francesco