The festival is part of the broader NEST project, the international network aimed at the non-profit art scene, including associations, artistrunspaces and collectives: an area little explored by the official art system but extremely dynamic and articulated, as demonstrated by the adhesions to the call , coming from all over the national territory in a multiplicity of vital and heterogeneous realities.
The festival's headquarters is Q35, a former industrial space located in Via Quittengo 35, where the exhibition (show) of the 20 spaces selected by the scientific committee will take place, in a survey that defines an initial mapping of the dimension of Italian independent production.
The 20 winning projects were chosen on the basis of the criteria that inform the very identity of NEST, i.e. the free exploration of new and experimental practices related to the aspects of research, production, exhibition, associations and the relationship with the public. Central are the values of planning, understood at 360°, and the ability to conceive and give life to multi-level networking realities. The selected projects are BOCS (Catania), Carico Massimo (Livorno), Cose Cosmiche (Milan), Current (Milan), Frequente (Milan), Giuseppefraugallery (Gonnesa – CI), Le Dictateur + B-tomic (Milan), Localedue ( Bologna), Museo d'Inverno (Siena), N38E13 (Palermo), Ramdom (Lecce), Rave East Side Artists Residency (Trivignano U.se – UD), SPAZIENNE (Milan), Spazio Y (Rome), Studio Corte 17 ( Prato), Werkbank Lana (Bolzano), Wunderkammer (Trento), Wunderbar+Peninsula (Rome/Berlin), Zentrum (Varese), /77 (Milan).
Another area of the complex is dedicated to graphic art (graphic), a focus created with the support of personal media | communication agency, which enriches the first edition of the festival with a selection of free and visionary projects created by Italian collectives and independent publishers, such as: Chicken Broccoli (Rome), Costola (Genoa) + Fame (Rome), Elyron (Turin), Fondo AAVV (Biella), Circular Artistic Presidium (Turin), PrintAbout Me (Turin), Tuta (Turin), Venti Dita Studio (Turin).
In parallel Bodyteller, curated by Francesca Arri, a 360° live program, with performances, concerts, talks, visuals, DJ sets, videos and workshops, will come to life in the Q35 live space, with Italian and international guests, including Sabrina Casadei (Rome) ClarindeWesselink(Amsterdam), Mare di Dirac (Turin), Le DIctateur + B-tomic(Milan), Emanuele Vesci (Rome/Berlin), EX NUNC (London/Web),Vivian ChinasaEzugha(Nigeria/UK),VestAndPage (Gemania/Italy), The Girls of Porn (Italy), Tweedo and Dario Timpani (Turin), Gandalf and High Files (Turin), Ambra Gatto Bergamasco and Edegar Fernando Starke (Dublin/Berlin).
As part of the festival, on Sunday 6, there will also be a session of the Permanent Forum of Contemporary Art dedicated to the critical issues of community-based artistic projects.
Q35 will host the festival from 4 to 6 November, while the NEST off circuit will come alive as early as 27 October, involving over 20 cultural spaces in the city in a series of exhibitions and events; between these two international collaborations with Istanbul and Marseille, to exemplify the network of relationships that NESXT intends to build between Italian and foreign realities. The spaces involved in the off circuit are Almanac Inn, Temporary Space Arteco, Autofocus/VANNI, Barriera, Progetto Diogene, blank – e/static exhibition space, Fusion Art Gallery + Edizioni Inaudite, Galleria Moitre, Galo Art Gallery, Laboratorio Artistico Pietra | PASAJ (Istanbul), Bodoni Bookshop/Space B, Jest, Ncontemporary – TPS, Officina 500 | Traveling Gallery – Association ART'ccessible (Marseille), Phos – Multipurpose Center for Photography and the Visual Arts, Spaziobianco, Spazio Buonasera, Spazio Ferramenta, Teatro Baretti, Theater “Gar(a)bato” or “little little one”, Turin Graphic Days, UltraSpazio coworking.
NEST, through the exhibition and the city circuit, takes the form of a great shared event that embraces the city and presents it as a single multiform creative space, to stimulate and promote it in front of the international public of the week of ContemporaryART Turin Piedmont: laboratory city that becomes stage for new practices and experiments, as in its vocation and identity. From this point of view, in addition to involving the aforementioned spaces, NEST has launched collaborative projects with other design realities such as Spazio Ferramenta, Superbudda, Calista Record, Genau and MovingBodies Festival, as well as networking operations with independent subjects who carry out artistic initiatives during the week of the contemporary art: DAMA (contemporary art fair which will take place at Palazzo Saluzzo Paesana), theGIFER (gif art festival which is divided into a series of city locations) and Torino GraphicDays (graphics festival which will have a home at Toolbox).
Artistic direction Olga Gambari; scientific committee: Pietro Gaglianò, Andrea Lacarpia, Roberta Pagani, Giangavino Pazzola and Marco Scotini.
