In November 2025, KUMA International was invited by Rete ONG ETS to curate the Autumn School of the project Art for Change in Turin, marking the organisation’s first official collaboration in Italy.
Held from 17 to 20 November at Fondazione Amendola, the Autumn School brought together artists, educators, cultural practitioners, and participants for four days of workshops, film screenings, and discussions exploring the intersections between art, memory, and gender-based violence.
The programme featured contributions from Forme in Bilico APS, including artist Irene Pittatore, trainer Isabelle Demangeat, and curator Lorena Tadorni, who presented the project L’amavo troppo e le ho sparato. Photographer Fiorella Costantini shared her project Stories of Legacy, which gives voice to young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina born after the war and reflects on coexistence, memory, and the possibility of imagining a shared future. Filmmaker Ado Hasanović presented his documentary My Father’s Diaries, opening a collective discussion on memory, responsibility, and inherited narratives.
Throughout the programme, gender-based violence was approached in its broadest sense, encompassing not only violence against women but also wider forms of violence rooted in unequal power relations and processes of exclusion. Through photography, film, and artistic research, participants explored how violence affects both individuals and communities, and how creative practices can foster critical reflection, dialogue, and social change.
Drawing on KUMA International’s long-term work with artists and survivors of violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina and other post-conflict contexts, the Autumn School highlighted how mechanisms of dehumanisation lie at the root of many forms of violence and how artistic practices can contribute to resisting these processes by creating spaces for empathy, understanding, and collective reflection.
Art for Change was promoted by Rete ONG ETS, Forme in Bilico APS, and ASAI, in collaboration with Accademia Cirko Vertigo, Mamre, Maurice GLBTQ APS, UCI – Uniti per crescere insieme, and KUMA International. The project was co-funded by the European Union and the Piedmont Region through the Connect for Global Change programme promoted by Piemonte ONG.
