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OSTANA RES

Ostana
RES

RES as RESIDENCY / RESOLUTION
RES signifies residency, resolution, and a unique Ostana-specific approach—not a high or low resolution, but a specificity of place and regeneration method. In Latin, RES also means enterprise or action, reflecting initiative and activity.

The Program:
Launched in 2020, OSTANA RES – The Ostana Residency Program – offers the opportunity to experience daily life and work in the village, open to all disciplines, themes, research fields, and areas of action. As both a cultural practice and a social innovation tool, since 2021 the Residency has hosted, by invitation, open call, and selection, researchers, artists, professionals, artisans, shepherds, farmers, young families, city-quitters, and anyone aiming to develop projects in synergy with the local community.

Born from the dialogue between Viso A Viso Community Cooperative and the Municipality of Ostana, the Residency Program functions as a laboratory device to test forms of temporary residency and promote new ways of living in the Alps. It strengthens Ostana as a space of Alpine innovation, a center for contemporary culture, and a fertile place for new projects and entrepreneurial activation.

OSTANA RES is part of Ostana’s smart strategy, presented in 2020 to the European Commission via the Smart Rural platform, with Ostana being the only Italian municipality selected among fifteen across Europe. Notable participants include Amitav Ghosh and Claudia Losi, Marlene Kuntz, Elisabetta Percivati (EPI), Simone Cametti, Giulietta De Bernardi, among others.

Deciphering the Earth

(2023-2025)

Deciphering the Earth: Relationships Between Ecosystems and Narratives (2023/2025)
The Residency of Amitav Ghosh and Claudia Losi in Ostana

As part of the Ostana Residency Program, Viso A Viso hosted in June 2023 the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh and the Italian artist Claudia Losi. During a week-long stay, they reflected on a new narrative for the environmental context in which the cooperative operates, in close collaboration with multiple local initiatives. Through a series of public meetings and walks open to everyone, discussions were held on the social, cultural, and economic development of a territory deeply connected to natural elements, emphasizing a model of growth rooted in the appreciation of biodiversity.

Ghosh stresses the urgent need for a new ecological narrative capable of reconnecting human communities with the natural environment. This requires recognizing the living environment of which humans are an integral part. Biodiversity, in essence, is another word for nature. It is therefore essential to reconnect with the complexity of environmental management and cultural landscapes, recognizing them and projecting them toward new scenarios for communities that are being reborn in our territories.

The artist and anthropologist Claudia Losi has long explored, through her artistic work, the arcane relationship between humans and animals and the overlapping spaces between reality and imagination. She writes in Being There. Beyond the Garden: “Every action we take shapes a place, and its topography is created through living. Welcoming or hostile, vast or confining, bright or dark places come into being through the web—dense or sparse—of daily relationships we manage to establish around and within ourselves, with the rest of the living. We are matter of the world.”

Ghosh writes in his latest book: “Those most attentive to environmental changes are almost always those living at the margins. People whose relationship with the soil, the forest, or the water is almost free from technological mediation.” This closeness to the natural environment may be the key factor to revitalizing communities in places like Ostana. During the residency, the discussions sought possible pathways in this direction.

Claudia Losi’s residency found an initial fruition in the social walk “The Journey of the Subtle”, part of the exhibition Walking Mountains, curated by Andrea Lerda at the Museo della Montagna in Turin and at Lou Pourtoun in Ostana. “The Journey of the Subtle emerged from a series of experiences during the recent residency under the slopes of Monviso and developed over a decade-long research exploring and negotiating the cultural boundaries between the human and the beyond-human dimensions. The action, conceived to unfold at sunset, transforms into a performative act of night-time animations, shadow walks, and interspecies voices and songs from nature. These impressions were gathered during the time spent in Ostana, hosted by the Viso A Viso community cooperative, and evoked by the location where the performance takes shape.”

Partners: Parco del Monviso, Alpstream – Center for the Study of Alpine Rivers, Municipality of Ostana, Fondazione Nuto Revelli, Fridays For Future Ostana, RBE media partner.

Program

ostanares2023-08-05-23_Mesa de trabajo 1 copia 3

Media

Claudia Losi “The Journey of the Subtles”

Amitav Ghosh

Marlene Kuntz KARMA CLIMA (2021/2023)

Marlene Kuntz – KARMA CLIMA (2021–2023)

Between 2021 and 2023, Viso A Viso co-produced the album Karma Clima by Marlene Kuntz, a cultural, musical, and environmental project aimed at raising awareness and promoting responsibility for individuals and communities regarding climate change, starting from music. The collaboration with Marlene Kuntz allowed the project to begin in small Alpine villages and in dialogue with local realities.

Viso A Viso curated the musical co-design and, through residencies and experiences in host communities, facilitated the search for and dialogue on possible responses to the environmental and economic crisis exacerbated by COVID-19. This work led to the creation of the new album Karma Clima, the Marlene Kuntz tour, and a series of experiences and meetings across Italy in which Viso A Viso participated as co-producer and speaker.

Phase 1 – October–December 2021
MKKC Residency #1 at Ostana (October 15–31)
Viso A Viso fully organized and managed the artist residency using its facilities and services. The album was written and recorded with a mobile studio, produced by Taketo Gohara. Workshops involved the Museo del Cinema, CinemAmbiente, Fondazione Fitzcarraldo, Tones on The Stones, Unioncamere Piemonte, ConfCooperative, and engaged multiple target groups: the local community, schools, local businesses, fans from across Italy, and the media. The Festival of Community Cooperatives was held together with ConfCooperative Nazionale and Cuneo, along with meetings with community cooperatives, companies, and artists.

MKKC Residency #2 at Piozzo – Birrificio Baladin (November 21–December 5)
Viso A Viso organized the residency in collaboration with partners, co-produced content, and supported national and local communications alongside press offices and media. The album was written and recorded with a mobile studio, produced by Taketo Gohara. Workshops included artisans from the Baladin supply chain and meetings with community cooperatives, companies, and artists.

MKKC Residency #3 at Paraloup (December 10–16)
Viso A Viso organized the residency in collaboration with partners, co-produced content, and supported communications. The album was written and recorded with a mobile studio, produced by Taketo Gohara. Meetings with community cooperatives, businesses, and artists took place.

Phase 2 – May–September 2022
Karma Clima was presented at MUSE – Museum of Science, Trento, on May 2 during the 70th anniversary of the Trento Film Festival. Viso A Viso showcased the co-production experience and the development model designed for Alpine villages, rooted in culture.

Karma Clima was presented at the Mole Antonelliana in Turin on June 5 for World Environment Day. Viso A Viso presented the co-production experience and silent film scoring workshops carried out with local schools in collaboration with the Museo del Cinema.

Karma Clima at Domus Aurea, Archaeological Park of the Colosseum, Rome, during the MOISAI Festival (October 7). Lorenzo Letizia created a live film installation titled Becoming of Time, edited in real time for the audience, accompanied by live music performed by Marlene Kuntz. Viso A Viso presented the co-production experience.

MKKC Bike Experiences (June 6, 12, 15) involved transfers between locations by bicycle with fans and media partners.

MKKC Reboost Residences

RR #1 – Ostana (June 6–11): Inauguration of MK portraits by Moira Franco, musical tailoring with Museo del Cinema, soundtracks with Museo del Cinema, first concert of the MKKC tour (June 11).

RR #2 – Paraloup (September 20–22): Resistant Bike Relay with Oliviero Alotto, inauguration of video work Karma Clima by Lorenzo Letizia, youth workshops.

RR #3 – Piozzo – Baladin (September 22–23): MKKC concert (September 23), Happennino Festival of the inland areas. Viso A Viso presented the co-production experience and the local development model through the MKKC project.

Phase 3 – September 2022–July 2023
The various MKKC tours engaged festivals, theaters, and special locations, and also visited small villages to continue dialogue with local communities.

Following the inspiration and model of Viso A Viso, Marlene Kuntz engaged with local actors and experiences to gather “bottom-up data,” build a new narrative of the mountains and climate change, and redefine vocabulary and limiting thought models.

Media

Fotografie di Michele Piazza

Karma Clima. Marlene Kuntz music factory

Karma Clima. Marlene Kuntz music factory

MK_Day2@MichelePiazza-9

Giulietta De Bernardi (2022)

Giulietta De Bernardi was born in Turin on July 26, 1971. She debuted as a dancer in 1990 with Paola Bianchi’s company. From 1995, she has worked as an actress in productions directed by renowned directors including Roberto Bacci, Claudio Morganti, Antonio Viganò, Cesare Ronconi, and Alfonso Santagata. She has also appeared in films alongside actors such as Iaia Forte, Anna Bonaiuto, and Isabelle Huppert.

In 1998, she founded the theater company Scarlattine Teatro, based at Campsirago Residenza in Lecco, through which she has produced performances for both children, exploring the interaction of the body with different materials, and adult audiences, where acting merges with video and sound. She continues her professional path with Scarlattine Teatro at Campsirago Residenza, focusing on research in Theater in Nature.

Her residency in Valle Po led to the creation of Il Piccolo Teatro, a permanent Community Theater workshop.

 

Simone Cametti e RUFA (2021)

https://www.unirufa.it/eventi/workshop-sessione-giugno-2025/“

Simone Cametti’s research is based on a pragmatic and artisanal approach to artistic practice, developed through hands-on interventions on materials and the context in which he operates. His aim is not to merely represent or refer to the surrounding reality, but to manipulate it, creating a hiccup, a glitch that interrupts the flow of habitual perception and induces a pause. Cametti continues his work through actions which, in his words, “are not performances, because performance relates to theater and communication, which interest me little. They are actions because I want them to act, just as the actions of a sculptor change the material.” These actions manifest as multimedia and organic projects that seem to develop by budding from one another, consistently attentive to fundamental themes such as nature, landscape, mineral and organic materials, space, and its occupation. These actions are subsequently formalized into photographic images, videos, sculptures, or installations that document the process of transformation and its persistence over time.

Cametti’s residency in Ostana, curated by Federica Barletta, established an alliance between the artist and Viso A Viso. Each year since 2021, this collaboration has taken shape in a workshop led by Simone Cametti as part of RUFA Roma University of Fine Arts activities. In Ostana and the Monviso Park, a group of students engage with the territory of the UNESCO MAB Reserve and with the history of Ostana’s regeneration.

https://www.unirufa.it/eventi/workshop-sessione-giugno-2025/

 

IMG-20211016-WA0030

Elisabetta Percivati (2021)

Elisabetta Percivati, known as EPI, a comic artist, graphic designer, and game designer, led a shared design workshop during her residency in Ostana. It began with a series of themed lessons for the young residents of the valley as part of the BAO – Biblioteca Aperta di Ostana program. During the residency, the project evolved into exploring a new mountain-inspired imaginary, starting from the illustration of alpine flora with the participation of local adolescents. This resulted in 40 graphic patterns reinterpreted by Elisabetta, creating a kind of “2.0 herbarium” of mountain vegetation, including dandelions, yarrow, daisies, bellflowers, and clover. Applied to around 200 everyday objects, these designs can be ordered online and shipped to buyers. The logo is another distinctive feature, including the names of both teacher and student, because, as Elisabetta explains, “Learning is always reciprocal. Every girl or boy has a specific talent that must be identified and put at the service of the project. It is essential to give them the freedom to create in their personal style, offering guidance where necessary, without building cages, but rather leaving freedom of action and choice.”

T-shirts, stencils, mugs, backpacks, laptop mats, phone cases, hats, and even clothing make up the EPI Viso A Viso collection, available online on the Redbubble here.

The project was featured at Smart Rural 21 in Poland in 2022 as an example of best practice in participatory cultural production.

http://www.epiproject.com/ostana/ 

EPI a Torino