Bernardo Giorgi and Irene Lupi led our intro session for the Art & Society course with our newly-arrived Spring 2020 participants.

Exploring and finding inspiration in the city of Siena and it’s surrounding territory, one important source of inspiration is the book “Invisible Cities” by Italo Calvino (born 1923 Cuba, died 1985 in Siena)

We looked at several references of contemporary artworks inspired by Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” including the short digital animation by Mario Pietro Brioschi:

On Sunday Jan 26 we travelled to the hilltop town of San Gimignano with our newly-arrived students from the Siena Art Institute & Siena School for Liberal Arts.  The day included a group lunch together and a guided tour of the city led by our Program Director Miriam Grottanelli de Santi.

We were able to see two contemporary art exhibits by KIKI SMITH & JOSÉ ANTONIO SUÁREZ LONDOÑO organized by Galleria Continua.

If you weren’t able to join us in person, here is a little video to give you a glimpse of San Gimignano from above:

On Saturday Jan 18 arrives Madyha Leghari for the start of her winter residency at the Siena Art Institute, a visual artist and writer based in Lahore, Pakistan.

Her first solo presentation, ‘Notes Towards Silence’ (2016) was held at Rohtas Gallery, Lahore. She has also been writing on art for a number of publications including ArtNow Pakistan and the Dawn Newspaper. She was the recipient of the Massachusetts College of Art

Teaching Residency in 2019 and the Murree Museum residency in 2014 and is nominated for the AICAD Post-Graduate Teaching Fellowship 2020. She has been teaching at the National College of Arts, Lahore, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston and the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore.

For more information, check out her residency profile page.