A month has passed since I was invited to RUFA – Rome University of Fine Arts’s open day. My trip in the capital was fleeting, just one night in the San Lorenzo district, and yet I had important moments of confrontation that I would like to share with you today.
First of all, finding yourself for the first time on this side of the line that separates students and teachers has been an emotion that I will take with me for a long time. My speech was certainly not a lesson, but rather an open dialogue in which I was invited to tell my personal and professional story, but having a group of young people ready to listen to me and ask questions has inevitably projected my memories to my years as a student.
First the art institute, then the years at the university of architecture, the hard period after the graduation in which my days were divided between internships and the development of my personal project and finally the beginning of my career as a freelance. What did motivate me to never give up during the obstacles that occurred during the years? The creativity that filled my days. Thanks to the creativity I found my expressive key to better set up my work.
That’s why I accepted to participate at the RUFA’s Open Day. Not the usual boring ceremony, but a true artistic and multidisciplinary happening, in which each space of 1500 square meters of Pastificio Cerere has been animated by a thousand creative opportunities.
This is a short interview for RUFA where I spoke about the connection between ideas and art.
What I noticed is that RUFA, the Academy of Fine Arts recognized by Miur (Italian Ministry of Education), is a nest of electrifying experiences, in which passions and peculiarities of students and teachers take flight in every classroom and in every laboratory. Stimuli and inspirations are the most lively soul of the Roman academic context, together with a range of training courses that allows each student to deepen their ambitions and learn methods and techniques of work.
Teaching creativity is not that easy, creativity must be stimulated expanding the horizons of interest. We go to a class of creativity every time we read a novel, we visit a contemporary art gallery or we watch a film. In fact, fine arts feed on contaminations, they are continuous happenings. To put it simply, someone who has studied sculpture, for example, will certainly come into contact with other arts, like photography, painting or set design.
Those who are lucky like me, in addition to a thousand creative stimuli, also find a super-business partner who completes and expands the structuring of the project on which you have worked for a long time.
So, what do students of creativity need as well as stimulating spaces, lessons and involving teachers? Obviously, the so-called “tools of the trade”. Whether they are chisels, synthetic paintings or performing computers, each creative has more toolboxes to draw on to give life and shape to their work. From cinema to photography, from painting to sculpture, from set design to graphic design, no student who aspires to become a professional can do without it.
The Pastificio Cerere is a place of excellence for all the didactic and extra-educational activities of RUFA. After the cessation of production in the 60s (yes, Pastificio Cerere was really a pasta factory in which flour and pasta were produced), it became the scene of an unprecedented cultural ferment that launched the San Lorenzo Group, a collective of artists that included names such as Gianni Dessì and Giuseppe Gallo. Try going for a ride inside the labyrinth of RUFA spaces, you will find a building with a strong industrial soul returned to the student community as a permanent cultural hub where you can develop every creative twist.
And then, I must say it all, in the terrace close to the space of the happening, there were (I suppose there are still now) some banana trees big enough to stir me a healthy envy!
Creative people from all over the world, let’s get together and let’s make some noise! This is my appeal, both for those who are in doubt for their studies or for those who are looking for a job or for those who have already a good job position. Being creative in company is always better!
Article sponsored by RUFA – Rome University of Fine Arts
