Promoted by Torino Social Impact, in collaboration with Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, conceived and curated by Artissima, the Torino Social Impact Art Award offers two young talents with a background in contemporary art and a multicultural and migrant background the opportunity to participate in an artist residency in Torino, aimed at creating a new video or photographic work.

The Torino Social Impact Art Award stems from the desire to establish a dialogue between art and social innovation with the aim of activating actions to have an impact on the present and on contemporary society. Starting from the conviction that art is able to provide tools and physical spaces to question contemporary social urgencies, the project aims to experiment with the field of the arts as a catalyst for the elaboration of new responses or structured solutions. The aim is to offer an opportunity to young people coming from other contexts to access an artistic career, in order to hypothesise forms of social inclusion in the world of Italian culture and the dissemination of messages capable of positively transforming the perception of what may commonly appear as distant, foreign or different.

Each edition of the project is characterised by a call for proposals, distributed to the main public and private Fine Arts Academies and Italian Universities, which is aimed at young people with training in the world of contemporary art and whose life and family histories and experiences have led them to experience different cultures in an international context.

The first edition of the project in 2020 entitled “Quante Italie?“ was won by Caterina Erica Shanta and Liryc Dela Cruz, who produced, during their residency in Turin, the works Talking about visibility and Il Mio Filippino: Invisible Bodies, Neglected Movements respectively. The second edition of the ZOOM IN/ZOOM OUT call in 2021 awarded the projects Adhan to Dora by the artist Monia Ben Hamouda and STILI DRAMA XVIII-XXI by the collective MRZB.

The third edition of the “Torino Social Impact Art Award” renews the opportunity for two young talents to take part in a month-long artist residency in Turin for the creation of a new video or photographic work, inviting them once again this year to use art to offer a contribution to the transformation of the social perception of particularly urgent themes or life stories considered “distant”.

The call 2022 entitled Rebellions and rebirths: the creative potential of confrontation invites us to reflect on the theme of social conflict in its various manifestations and latent forms: a tangible and concrete phenomenon that has always found in art a peaceful means of expression, but at the same time with a strong potential for denunciation. Contestation and dissent can become a generative and creative tool if the confrontation does not lead to destructive attitudes and behaviour, but is mediated in order to stimulate the development of new visions and social transformations. Social conflict, in fact, besides highlighting issues of social and spatial justice, is generative of new representations, ideas, exercises in negotiation and contamination, resistance and mutual aid, which lead to the birth of innovative practices and new languages. Within the complexity of social confrontation, art can only be an ally in this challenge of recomposition and regeneration.

At the beginning of the residency there will be a full day workshop, with the aim of promoting a relationship and an exchange between artists and the territory. An interactive-experiential path will be proposed to get to know the local context. The city will be crossed from one end to the other by tram line 4, famous in Turin for its route from the Mirafiori South district to the Falchera district in the north. The route will be interspersed with meetings and visits to significant places, such as the Orti Generali or the Case dei quartieri (Neighbourhood Houses), which, often breaking with their own past history, work to affirm a certain imagery of the city, based on values such as proximity, relationships, networks, collaborative experiences, care and mutual aid, and respect for the environment.

The artists will be able to take advantage of a tutoring service provided by Matteo Mottin and Ramona Ponzini, founders of the art project Treti Galaxie who, together with Artissima and Torino Social Impact, will accompany the winners on their discovery of the city and its most significant cultural and social expressions. The selected young people will be guided through the production of their work and will have the opportunity to meet the curators of the project and some of the players in the Torino Social Impact network active in the area, discovering the world of entrepreneurship and social innovation.

The videos or photographs produced during the residency period will be presented at Artissima 2022 (3-6 November).

Requirements and how to participate

The call is open to young artists between the ages of 21 and 35 who live in Italy, with a multicultural and migratory background; who attend or have attended the Academy of Fine Arts or University in Italy and/or abroad, or who have presented their research and work at festivals, in exhibitions in galleries or in Italian or foreign institutions, and who intend to develop their own path starting from contemporary art; who intend to create a work through images (video/photography); who have the possibility to attend the entire one-month residency programme in Turin (end of June – July 2022).

The artists will be selected by the “Torino Social Impact Art Award” Committee composed of Luigi Fassi, Director of Artissima, Mario Calderini, Politecnico di Milano and Spokesperson for Torino Social Impact, Alberto Anfossi, Secretary General of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, Lorenzo Sassoli de Bianchi, President of Fondazione ICA Milano, Ilda Curti, President of Associazione IUR Innovazione Urbana Rigenerazione, Matteo Bergamini, editorial director of Exibart, Matteo Mottin and Ramona Ponzini, founders of the art project Treti Galaxie and tutors of the third edition of the award.

The residency

“Torino Social Impact Art Award” will host the selected artists for a 30-day residency at the hospitality partner Combo, an innovative hospitality concept in the heart of Porta Palazzo in Turin, a historical and multicultural district.
The artists will receive a lump-sum contribution of €3,000 for the production of the work and for their stay in Turin, in addition to their accommodation in residence.

Download the call for applications here. The deadline for participation is 23 May.

For further information please write to segreteria@artissima.it