After the first two cycles of events held in 2024, also throughout 2025 the biennial program of GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo will once again actively engage the communities of the local area, together with the participation of international artists.
Between Bergamo and numerous municipalities throughout the valleys and plains of the Bergamo territory, over the course of the year, the works of Atelier dell’Errore, Cecilia Bengolea, Bianca Bondi, Maurizio Cattelan, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Asunción Molinos Gordo, Francesco Pedrini, and Julius von Bismarck will be featured, along with film productions by Michela de Mattei and Invernomuto, Agnese Galiotto, and Giulio Squillacciotti.
A special project arising from collaboration between GAMeC and the Bergamo section of the Club Alpino Italiano will also be presented in the summer: EX.—a design workshop based on the work of Andrea Cassi and Michele Versaci—will be responsible for the reconstruction of the historical Aldo Frattini bivouac in Valbondione, in the Seriana Valley, imagining the new structure as a high-altitude GAMeC “venue.”
In 2024, the GAMeC in Bergamo launched Thinking Like a Mountain: a widespread cultural program that, until the end of 2025, will involve the whole territory of the Province of Bergamo, from the pre-Alpine areas to the towns of the Bergamo valleys, from the urban parks of the capital to the municipalities of the plain. The program foresees a path of sharing artistic experiences that GAMeC has undertaken together with local communities to reflect on the issues of sustainability and community, and in parallel, to initiate a debate on the role of the art institution within the wider territorial context.
Presented as an alternative biennial format—and for this reason recently renamed The Orobie Biennial—Thinking Like a Mountain bases its planning on three pivotal principles, differing from traditional ones: i.e. being “more localized,” “long-term,” and “scaled.” The Orobie Biennial is in fact an event that is held not “every two years” but “for two years,” and that does not occur “in a place” but “with a place,” staging projects arising from the encounter between international artists and local communities on a scale that is not “as large as possible” but sustainable and variable in relation to the dimension of each individual context.
The territory of Bergamo is known as “Orobic” because of the pre-Alpine fan of valleys that embraces it, covering an area that stretches from the mountain arc of the Orobie Mountains down to the Bergamasque plain, including the Brembana, Seriana, Scalve and Imagna valleys. The Orobie Biennial indulges the desire to narrate this place, this ecosystem made up of both human and non-human communities, in a non-canonical and non-iconic form, capitalizing on the heritage of experiences shared during the pandemic, with a commitment not to abandon the reflections elaborated during that period—one so full of good intentions for the future—keeping their memory alive and adapting them to the changing course of time.
PROGRAM
Under the artistic direction of Lorenzo Giusti, also in 2025 GAMeC’s widespread biennial program will offer a rich series of artistic projects across the Bergamo territory, with a focus on mountain areas, Bergamo valleys, and urban green areas alike.
Split into three cycles of events—to be inaugurated on February 8, June 7, and October 4—the program will feature international artists engaged in the development of projects arising from their encounters with local communities.
FEBRUARY–MAY
The first cycle in 2025 will open with a tour through the Bergamo valleys of three films produced by GAMeC and directed by Michela de Mattei and Invernomuto, Agnese Galiotto, and Giulio Squillacciotti, which among others will stop off in the communes of Vedeseta (Val Taleggio), Gromo (Val Seriana), Averara (Val Brembana), and Gorno (Val del Riso), and will be accompanied by a series of conversations with the filmmakers in the GAMeC spaces. To mark the opening of the cycle, San Pellegrino Terme will host a special screening of all three films.
The reappearance of wolves in various parts of Italy led Michela de Mattei and Invernomuto to analyze the figure of the wolf as a symbol of independence and knowledge, of conflict and transformation. Paraflu delves into the landscapes of the Orobie Mountains, alternating 16 mm footage with artificial intelligence-generated effects that amplify the sense of disorientation and narrative ambiguity evoked by the wolf, while also alluding to the tales of philosopher and naturalist Baptiste Morizot that describe the animal as possessing the prestidigitating art of making its own traces disappear.
Migratori by Agnese Galiotto winds along the natural migratory route that crosses Italy and extends to North Africa, along paths followed by many bird species. This flight corridor geographically and ecologically connects various ecosystems, highlighting how crucial these phenomena are for the biodiversity and ecological sustainability of the Alps and surrounding areas. Migratori focuses on the complex interaction between humans and nature: the protagonists are ornithologists who observe, measure, and record the data of migratory birds, but the narrative also suggests a reflection on the relationship between scientific observation and animal freedom. It seems difficult to be able to know nature without experiencing it directly—a practice articulated in a relationship of love, empathy, and power.
Through the eyes of two young farmers and their parents, MUT by Giulio Squillacciotti—made in collaboration with the Bergamo Chamber of Commerce as part of the second edition of MADE Film Festival—recounts the cyclical nature of life in mountain huts, which becomes a universal portrait of working with animals and of family relationships made up of actions, silences, and affection, steeped in nature.
Also scheduled for February is a special edition (the twelfth) of the Premio Lorenzo Bonaldi per l’Arte – EnterPrize, the first international competition dedicated to young curators under thirty, established by GAMeC and the Bonaldi Group in 2003. The project Fossi io teco; e perderci nel verde by curator Greta Martina involves artists Attila Faravelli, Enrico Malatesta, O Thiasos TeatroNatura (Sista Bramini, Camilla Dell’Agnola, and Nora Tigges), Umberto Pellini, Nicola Ratti, Lorenzo Silvestri, and Valentina Viviani. Drawing inspiration from the writings of Aldo Leopold and Giovanni Pascoli, the project constitutes an invitation to rediscover the connection with nature through wonder, care, and responsibility, and is divided between works, workshops and performances in the GAMeC exhibition spaces and around Bergamo. The project will be presented initially in Serina—Lorenzo Bonaldi’s birthplace—during which there will be a performance by Australian artist Felicity Mangan, before going on to be set up in GAMeC’s Spazio Zero.
JUNE–SEPTEMBER
Maurizio Cattelan will be featured in the next exhibition at Palazzo della Ragione, which since 2018 has provided the summer venue for the Museum in the heart of Bergamo’s Upper Town. The Sala delle Capriate will in fact host a recently produced work of his. Especially for this occasion, in the spirit of Thinking Like a Mountain, the project will also extend beyond the walls of the Palazzo thanks to the collaboration with the Municipality of Bergamo, bringing the Italian artist best known on the international stage—for his daring and innovative approach—face to face with the public space, with new productions spanning the Upper and Lower Town. The interventions will be on display to the public until the end of the month of October.
A new work by Argentine artist Cecilia Bengolea will be presented in Villa d’Almè, as part of the fourth edition of ON AIR – Argentina-Italy Art Residency, the residency program arising from the collaboration between GAMeC and Fundación PROA in Buenos Aires to foster exchanges of experiences with a view to enhancing the artistic potential of the two countries. Influenced by the symbolic energies found both in nature and in human relationships, the artist—who considers the body a means of both individual and collective communication—uses dance as a tool to initiate radical empathy and emotional exchange.
During the summer, as part of a cultural partnership between GAMeC and the municipalities of Dossena and Roncobello, site-specific interventions by German artist Julius von Bismarck and Bergamo-born artist Francesco Pedrini will also be presented in Val Parina.
Julius von Bismarck’s work will be installed in Dossena, in the oldest mining district of the Brembana Valley, from which ferrous material and fluorite have been extracted for centuries, and will explore the natural phenomena and local mythologies that have inhabited it throughout its mining history. Deeply interested in ecological processes and how they are perceived and told, the artist brings in various areas of experimentation to his multidisciplinary research, often crossing into fields such as those of physics, technology, and the natural sciences.
Francesco Pedrini’s project in Roncobello will arise from a research path supported by studies in archeoastronomy and other disciplines, to be shared with the local community through a series of meetings open to the public. The artist will create a permanent instrument for observing the celestial vault, accessible to those who wish to stop off in the area.
Dossena and Roncobello will also host the works of Francesco Ferrero, Gianmarco Cugusi, and Roberto Picchi, winners of the 2024 edition of Sentieri Creativi: a project rooted in the synergy between Bergamo per Giovani, the Municipality of Bergamo and the Politecnico delle Arti “Donizetti-Carrara,” with which GAMeC collaborated to set up a new format of the residency program. The start of the summer cycle will pave the way for the announcement of the winning artists of the 2025 residency program, who until mid-July will stay in Dossena and Roncobello to develop their new works.
A GAMeC “VENUE” ALONG THE HIGH TRAIL OF THE BERGAMASQUE OROBIE: THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE FRATTINI BIVOUAC
The summer of next year will also see the presentation of a special project arising from the partnership between GAMeC and the Bergamo section of the Italian Alpine Club (CAI): EX., a design workshop based on the work of Andrea Cassi and Michele Versaci that combines art, landscape, and sustainable technology through architecture. The workshop will be responsible for the reconstruction of the historic Aldo Frattini bivouac in Valbondione, located along the wonderful Alta Via delle Orobie Bergamasche (Upper Path of the Bergamasque Orobie) in the Seriana Valley, imagining the new structure as a high-altitude GAMeC “venue.” A place that will not host exhibitions or events, but that in itself—by virtue of its location and form in relation to its primary function as a place of rest and protection, and always open—may thus constitute a unique aesthetic experience. Situated at an altitude of about 2,300 meters, the bivouac is nestled in a landscape characterized by jagged peaks, rocky slopes, Alpine pastures and snowfields: the Parco delle Orobie Bergamasche. It is a particularly striking area by virtue of its unspoiled nature and the presence of varieties of flora and fauna typical of mountain environments, and a place of passage and safety for numerous hikers and mountaineers. In fact, the special feature of the new bivouac will be the ability to serve as a base for environmental monitoring activities, data collection and scientific research, contributing to enhancing the knowledge and protection of mountainside ecosystems. Thanks to the use of new technologies, it will be possible to constantly transmit images and data, the collection points of which will be at the same time both GAMeC and Palamonti, the CAI headquarters in Bergamo. In the run-up to the opening, scheduled for 2025 to mark the 60th anniversary of the death of Aldo Frattini, a member of the CAI branch of Bergamo, a multidisciplinary symposium will be organized to promote dialogue between researchers, architects and professionals from various disciplines, which will not only provide a moment of reflection, but a concrete opportunity to address the complexities of the relationship between human beings and the mountains.
OCTOBER–JANUARY
The fall cycle of Thinking Like a Mountain will include an exhibition by the Italian art collective Atelier dell’Errore for the GAMeC project room. In Spazio Zero, the exhibition will bring together the most significant sets from their production since 2015, the year the project was transformed from a visual arts workshop dedicated to neuro-divergent children to a collective professionally dedicated to art and performance practices.
The South African artist Bianca Bondi will create a site-specific installation for the deconsecrated church of Santa Maria di Gerosa in Val Brembilla, a project that combines alchemical methods and experimentation with materials that foster potential mutations between elements, placing both a macroscopic and microscopic level of interaction between ecosystems under the spotlight.
In the Valle della Biodiversità of Astino, in collaboration with the “Lorenzo Rota” Botanical Garden, Spanish artist Asunción Molinos Gordo will develop an artistic-participatory workshop that intends to present new generations with a model of sustainable and multifunctional management, starting out from the principles of the ancient self-organized and communal legal form of land management known as “common land.”
The Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas will close the rich fall program of Thinking Like a Mountain with another site-specific installation—made in a participatory manner together with a number of communities from the Bergamo plain—with everyday objects and waste materials from across the territory, deploying irony to explore the notions of progress linked to the industrial imaginary.
Alongside the exhibitions and projects of Thinking Like a Mountain, the online magazine activities will also continue, which during 2024 featured interviews with artists as well as contributions and insights on the topics covered by the projects, ranging from contemporary arts to design and from architecture to anthropology. Articles published over the first two cycles of the project include those by Simone Ferracina, Senior Lecturer in Architectural Ecologies at the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture of the University of Edinburgh, with an exhortation to embrace a certain opacity, i.e. to accept and acknowledge a degree of impenetrability and unknowability as a means of promoting diverse design sensitivities; and the essay “The Earth as a Ruin” by Giulia Rispoli, Science Historian at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, which explores the epistemological debate on the geology of the Anthropocene, starting from eighteenth-century approaches to the significance of mountains in aesthetics and the history of civilization, right up to the present. Future issues of the magazine will include contributions—among others—from Lorenzo Bartalesi, Professor of Aesthetics at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, who will be called upon to reflect on how visual culture actively participates in the construction of the collective identity, and ornithologist and researcher Enrico Bassi, whose narrative—through perspectives of socio-economic and natural history—outlines an image of the Orobie and their both human and non-human communities.
The magazine will be further enriched with a collection of voices from the communities encountered along the path of Thinking Like a Mountain. The goal is to create an additional narrative layer that fits into the mosaic of stories elaborated by the program. These testimonies—closely bound to the personal experiences of the narrators—while starting from local and intimate experiences, will highlight themes that resonate with the broader vision of the project, emphasizing the original connection of human beings to the land, the mountains, and their communities, reaffirming the urgency to examine them with respect and awareness.
Radio GAMeC programming will also resume, with a new season dedicated to Thinking Like a Mountain, curated by author and radio producer Ilaria Gadenz. Podcasts will be available in the magazine and via GAMeC’s social media channels.
Lastly, visual documentation of Thinking Like a Mountain will be on display in the new GAMeC venue when it opens. This will provide an opportunity to retrace the two years of the project through the exhibitions and events that have involved contemporary artists and local communities right across the vast territory of the province of Bergamo.
Thinking Like a Mountain is a GAMeC project
Artistic Director: Lorenzo Giusti
Associate Curators: Sara Fumagalli, Marta Papini
