Nadia Stefanel of Correggio (RE)

Your new daily ritual ...
The lockdown in Italy he surprised us one evening in early March; the warnings had already been there since 24 February with the total closure of schools (I have two daughters 14 and 11 years) and shortly after the world of art, but in our heads nothing made us foresee that it would only be the beginning of a radical change in our daily lives. So we all four met at home (fortunately with a large garden) to divide us living spaces, sizes, rooms, and wifi connection. Apart from the initial shock, it was essential to have daily programs of the #masttodo, let theleisure Romano unleashed creativity, recharging your energy, but that melancholy to know that, for a while', normality would not have been possible and that this “inertia” didn't completely take over us. In a nutshell precise rules of life (from getting up early in the morning to establishing activities to do at home and for work or school during the day). It was crucial. Why, I can assure you, than to work in a different value of time with the children in tow (even if big) with their online classes is an Indiana Jones feat.

We are dealing with a new time and space. What are you discovering or rediscovering about yourself?
After an initial moment of disbelief and amazement at the Pandemic and the lockdown, I tried to use the time available constructively, not to lose me, to make it an enrichment (forced but useful), to come out more ready than before, more formed. And so I dusted off old art history books, concerned the works of art of the latter 50 years (1970-2020), I signed up for an online course at the MoMA Museum, engaged in a video project in English on telling the story of the Coronavirus, in an ironic way, through Art for the Italian Chamber of Commerce of Singapore, took notes, read fiction books, and mostly made of scouting of art images on the net. This skill was taught to me in University, by my Prof Arturo Carlo Quintavalle. He organized monographic courses with 1000 black and white artwork images at a time (color photocopies were very expensive) to memorize and recognize, during exams, like in a TV quiz show. It seemed delirious then, today however it has allowed me to broaden my visual reception with a large heritage of connections. A research that has become a passion.

What you're missing? Your personal experience of "absence" and "lack".
For someone like me who is used to always having a suitcase in hand, constantly moving between workplaces and places of art with every means of transport, with the intrinsic vocation of traveling as a means of knowledge of the other and of other cultures, the stop was like a bucket of cold water in the face. Especially if the need for presence is added to this, contacts that has always distinguished me in relationships, where to be together while working, by sharing the force of the force of opinion, thoughts, discussions, talk and laughter is the basis of my and our world.
So what am I missing? Just that. Traveling for work, to know and see and the physicality of a handshake or a hug, but not to 2 meters away.
I miss working side by side with artists, the curators, to carry out the project, I miss field work, like having a night out to be ready for the next day's vernissage, the public at exhibitions, the flavor of this universe.
Now it's all virtual, right. But, at the moment, despite the immense efforts on everyone's part, by the institutions, to museums, from the galleries, individual artists to network, I am afraid that the "improper" use of telematic means that have been widely used in these times will consolidate, in my opinion, is not the same thing.

Museums and galleries have reacted to the moment with digitalization and virtuality. What are your "strategies" for establishing new relationships?
As for the Dino Zoli Foundation, with Monica Zoli, we decided to follow, immediately, the hashtag #iorestoacasa of the MIBAC and to try our hand at a more impactful social activity on our profiles (Facebook, Instagram e Twitter). I have divided the activity into 3 sections: virtual visit and insights related to the exhibition "Sewn profiles of sanctity" by Lucia Bubilda Nanni in progress (closed one day after the vernissage), the narration of the works of the Foundation's permanent collection through keywords such as Geometries, Intimacy, Luce, Cielo, Porto and Alphabets and forays into the recent past with exhibitions and projects created by 2017 to the 2019.
We also asked the artists and curators who had collaborated with the Dino Zoli Group to create small art clips to post to tell the story of the project created together and thus keep the relationship alive with our audience, as if they were moments of relief in a daily life studded with restrictions and prohibitions.

How do you imagine the world, when everything will start again?
Unfortunately I still don't have a precise idea of ​​what will await us next. Economically I think it could be one debacle for the whole sector, but I believe that, as in every epochal crisis, the ability of the art world is to release the best under stress, to put into circulation a powerful creativity understood as the ability to innovate through the imagination and quoting Rodari, that creativity that is inherent in human nature and is therefore within everyone's reach. Not because everyone is an artist, but so that no one is a slave.
And that's what we want to do as the Dino Zoli Foundation in this forced stand by, trying to intercept what the next trends might be, new, normality. Because surely the world of Art and Culture will also start again.

Nadia Stefanel: I live and work in Correggio (RE) and Forlì. After 11 years in the direction of Correggio Art Home, study center dedicated to Antonio Allegri, I met on my way Mr. Dino Zoli and dal 2017 I am Cultural and Communication Manager at Dino Zoli Group and Director of the Dino Zoli Foundation. I have also been collaborating closely with the artist Omar Galliani for years.
In the Foundation I deal with cultural programming in Italy and Singapore, where one of the companies of the Group, la DZ Engineering dal 2011 creates the track lighting and communication systems on the GP F1 circuit, and the curatorship of some exhibitions.
The lockdown has suspended our latest exhibition project in the air Who’s Next (supported by Dino Zoli Textile) dedicated to Lucia Bubilda Nanni (Stitched profiles of holiness), a journey through the life of some Saints with works made entirely with the sewing machine by this gifted artist.
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