Catania, Italy
Mission Title: Art and Commerce – Centro Zo
Mission Date: 23-06-2008
SCRIPT
- Visit Centro Zo and record its architectural features and particularities, in relation to the railway, the seaside and the neighborhood.
- Interview creative director Sergio Zinna and ask him about the line between art and commerce, have they ever crossed the difficulties of doing any buiness or culture in Sicily.
- Ask him about Zo's creative production and networking experiences. Why does the center focus more on performances and architecture rather than visual art? Is there any connection with local issues dealing with the specificity of Catania?
- Have a walk with Zinna and have him explain the neighborhood to you, and tell you something more about the city's regeneration of the last two decades.
- Does he feel that the Centro Zo should be a model for other cities or is merely a solution to the best possible solution for the problems of Sicily?
TRAVEL BAG
How do you create a cultural center without money?
After a bit of globetrotting, a gang of arts professionals originally from Catania returned to their hometown with a vision to open an international arts center. Usually such visions need a deep-pocketed philanthropist or support from the government to get off the ground. The prodigal arts professionals, who called themselves Officine, had neither, and thus had to become reluctant arts entrepreneurs to realize their project. Out of the vibrant local music scene that exploded from Sicily's second city and the devotion of Officine, the Centro Zo was born into a converted sulphur factory. The center hosts festivals, music, theatre and contemporary art, but to pay the bills they had to open a restaurant, conference centers and a media production facility.
The culture they support is real, hosting marginal and innovative acts, artists, and playwrights from all over the world, but it must be difficult to walk the line between authentic cultural production and a bloodless capitalism, and their website bespeaks this difficulty. The first thing you see when you go their homepage isn't a flash of their radical arts program but an advertisement for their restaurant. In the shadow of the Etna volcano and amidst the sundry difficulties of poverty and mafia in Sicily, the line between art and commerce for the Centro Zo has become blurred, where does culture end and entrepreneurship begin?
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