Art and nature, the magical encounter in Valsugana

An open-air museum, which has nature as its absolute protagonist and which is accessible to the public all year round (except 25 December). For more than 30 years “Arte Sella: the contemporary Mountain” has represented the place where art, music, dance and other expressions of human creativity come together, creating a unique dialogue between human ingenuity and the natural world. Visiting the forest path on the southern slope of Mount Armentera, in Borgo Valsugana, in the province of Trento, one can breathe the concept on which the ArteSella Association was born, founded in 1989 by a group of friends, which over time has built up a qualified staff and was supported by an important network of partners: nature must not only be defended and protected but also interpreted, and the artist is not the absolute protagonist of the work of art, but accepts that nature completes his work.

In fact, the works that you come across are not only totally made with natural materials, but in an even more magical way they blend with the surrounding environment itself: "They are placed in a hic et nunc - explains the Arte Sella website -: they come out of the landscape , and then return to nature”. In other words, the artists give life to this natural architecture, which is then completed thanks to the patient intervention of nature itself. A unique project which over the years has also been enriched by the contribution of important masters of theArt in nature which, to name a few, Nils-Udo, Arne Quinze, John Grade and Michelangelo Pistoletto. Since 2016, the park of Villa Strobele has also been usable with a new project that hosts installations created by internationally renowned architects, such as Atsushi Kitagawara, Kengo Kuma e Michele De Lucchi.

The success of the initiative has not gone unnoticed even from the point of view of its environmental value: last summer Valsugana was the first and only destination certified for sustainable tourism worldwide, according to the criteria of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, a non-profit organization that represents various members globally, including the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), NGOs, national and local governments and operators of various kinds, united from the desire to achieve best practices in the field of sustainable tourism. Arte Sella has been recognized as an unprecedented model, which puts the community at the centre, a positive example of Italian excellence in relation to the delicate and highly topical issue of climate change.