Throughout 2026, the Cittadellarte Journal is hosting a series of interviews with the Foundation's collaborators, who are asked to answer an identical set of questions. Cittadellarte allo specchio (Cittadellarte in the mirror) – this is the name of the column – serves as an exercise in listening and self-reflection that crosses different roles, practices, and sensitivities, rendering a plural portrait of the Cittadellarte organism. The questions touch upon some of the most urgent cruxes of our time – from social transformation to responsibility, from education to indifference, from the risk of artistic action to the possibility of reactivating empathy – and function as a mirror: they do not seek definitive answers, but ask the respondents to take a stand, to expose themselves, to question their own role in the present.

In this nineteenth instalment, the mirror turns to Nazarena Lanza, Coordination and Network Development of Biella Città Arcipelago. An agricultural technician and anthropologist, after six years between Morocco and Senegal, she returned to Italy in 2015 to coordinate Slow Food activities and projects in Africa and the Middle East. Passionate about food, agriculture, and local traditions, she delved into some of the most representative supply chains in the area, considering them primarily as cultural heritage linked to local agricultural traditions. Upon returning to the Biella area since 2019, she has coordinated Slow Food Travel Montagne Biellesi, a network project involving local producers, restaurateurs, and accommodation facilities, while simultaneously managing the pantry and educational activities related to food at the Trappa di Sordevolo. Since 2024, she has coordinated, as mentioned, the Biella Città Arcipelago project for Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte, a network project aimed at launching a widespread process of regeneration of the social and cultural fabric of Biella.

In the interview that follows, Nazarena reflects on the present starting from what happens in the daily bonds between people, territories, and communities. Her answers traverse food, agriculture, education, and participation as practices of transformation. Between mycelia, communities of practice, and the Third Paradise, her vision is emblematic: no change is possible without relationships, and no transformation can occur alone. In the background remains a word that returns several times, like a polar star to be taken as a reference: resistance.

2025 closed as a year in which the word “transition” seems to have lost its strength, replaced by a widespread sense of tiredness and a return to the logic of power, war, and closure. In this context, does it still make sense to talk about responsible social transformation, or do we need to change the vocabulary and rethink practices?
It makes sense more than ever; otherwise, I wouldn't be here. The logic of power you speak of is overwhelming our humanity. Hence, the feeling of fear, loneliness, and helplessness, which can pass for tiredness. This logic has progressively led us to put consumption ahead of relationships, to make us dependent on the market instead of people, to cultivate the illusion of autonomy when we were simply alienating ourselves. The individual does not exist except in relation to others, and this relation must be nurtured. In this way, we become people, embedded in communities, aware of our own role with respect to ourselves and others. The images of members of the global elite strike me for this reason as well: I see rapacious individuals, incapable of feeling empathy and having sincere relationships, of being well. They exhibit luxury and objectified bodies, they take pleasure in their power of oppression, and they communicate alienation and horror. We must free ourselves from the models imposed by consumerism and stop feeding this system that is leading us to collapse. A responsible social transformation is necessary, but to achieve it, we must first decolonise our minds, free ourselves from the models that focus on having rather than being, rethink our daily practices and also the language with which we express ourselves. This does not mean inventing new words, but reclaiming all those whose meaning has been distorted. Think of the word peace, which today presupposes preventive wars and rearmament, or the word security, which leads us to accept pushbacks at sea, the imprisonment of unwanted people because they are poor, or the building of walls. The antidote to all this is care: of relationships, of one's living and working environment, of oneself. With the awareness that the necessary social transformation is done together, or it is not done at all.

Once again this year, Cittadellarte has operated on both a local and global level: from China to the borders of Europe, from the Mediterranean to East Asia. Bringing a demopratic installation or artwork to places fraught with history, conflict, or symbolism exposes art to unpredictable interpretations. How important is it for the Foundation to accept this risk?
If you are consistent with your message and you leave a mark, you must not be afraid of the risks. The Third Paradise is a beautiful sign because it is recognisable, essential, and it immediately sets people's imagination in motion. Me, you... us? Nature, artifice… and what do we place at the centre? What should we strive for? How can we use it to stimulate our creative capacity and that of children? When I try to apply the trinamic formula to the questions I ask myself, I find myself thinking of advanced and sustainable technologies, perfectly integrated into the context and effectively responding to the needs for which they were born: a watermill, a bicycle… On the level of social transformation, working for Biella Città Arcipelago (the Demopratic Work closest to us), I try to apply the trinamic formula in the same way. Those who participate bring with them the “us” of the community of practice in which they are embedded (a family, a working group, an organisation….) and together we try to design a regeneration of the Biella area in a responsible sense, from education to mobility, from health to hospitality. For this reason, I am happy to know that Demopratic Works and installations of the Third Paradise are multiplying around the world!

In 2026, what does it mean to educate for responsibility in a world where algorithms, artificial intelligence, and automation seem to steal more and more space from conscious human action and, in this sense, from authorship?
For me, educating for responsibility means educating to take care of the environment around us, trying to escape from algorithms and automation as much as possible. Using our hands, using our bodies, using our heads, doing things together. It seems to me the only way to grow and to be in the world in a responsible way. This does not mean ignoring or not knowing AI, but I feel like I have already lived through this scenario: a new technology arrives, it is free until we are all completely dependent on it, then we discover that not only are we already paying for it with the environmental and social damage it causes, but that we must also start paying for it individually. Along the way, we have lost the sense of things. I don't think one can consider oneself an author with AI.

In the time spent at Cittadellarte, what do you feel you have unlearned? Is there a conviction that you would let go of today compared to the past?
I arrived at Cittadellarte after a long journey during which I believe I have always learned. On this path, I have freed myself from many convictions that were not supported by experience, but I cannot say I have unlearned anything. I continue to learn, and I hope to continue for the rest of my life.

Let's try to consider Cittadellarte as a living organism. Which part do you feel is more fragile today? And which, instead, is more mature than you would have imagined?
My model is Mancuso's plant society, that is, a system strongly connected (by mycelium!) where intelligence is diffused in every part of it and there is no hierarchy between functions. I think Cittadellarte should strive more towards this: a greater connection between its parts, ideas, skills, and experiences. We should try to be a forest and take care of our mycelium, which is art, the thing that connects us.

We live in a time where we are exposed daily to images of extreme pain, yet we often remain immobile. What kind of emotion is indifference? If the latter were a work of art, would you destroy it like a breaking of Pistoletto’s mirror? Indifference is not an emotion because it is not alive. And yes, I would like to smash it with a mallet just as Michelangelo did. Because indifference is a screen, beyond which perhaps there is life.

In the dominant and media narrative of conflicts, numbers often replace faces. What responsibility does art have in restoring humanity where political language erases it? Can art reactivate empathy without falling into the spectacularisation of pain? Let us also bear in mind that the word of the year 2025, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is "Rage Bait", which indicates content created to provoke anger and outrage, particularly on social media.
Unfortunately, during conflicts, propaganda replaces information, and only some faces – those of the group targeted by the stigmatising narrative that leads to dehumanisation to make extermination acceptable – are replaced by numbers. About the others, however, we know everything: whether they had a family, where they lived, what they did… Every regime has tried to use art to reinforce its narrative, and art has always tried to break the mould, even at the risk of life. In any case, art is at the centre, and precisely for this reason, if it is the expression of a sincere creative need, it cannot but take a side. Art must be at the service of a responsible regeneration of society.

When you turn off the lights in your office, which emotion remains switched on?
That of not letting myself be extinguished by what happens outside. I think it can be called resistance, and its fuel is the joy of being in the world, which is something you conquer!