Today marks the launch of Cittadellarte in the Mirror, a new column in our Journal conceived as an exercise in listening and self-reflection. Throughout 2026, on a weekly basis, the Journal will host a series of reflections by collaborators of the Foundation, each invited to respond to the same set of questions in order to bring forth a plurality of perspectives inhabiting the same organism. The initiative was conceived by Paolo Naldini, Director of the Fondazione Pistoletto, and stands in continuity with his traditional end-of-year interview.

The questions address some of the most urgent issues of our time - from social transformation to responsibility, from education to indifference, from empathy to the risks of artistic action - and function as a mirror: rather than returning a neutral image, they ask those who respond to expose themselves, to take a position, and to question their role both within and beyond Cittadellarte. What will emerge is a portrait of voices in motion, shaped by hopes, proposals, resonances, and differences.

Opening this cycle, following Naldini’s “episode zero,” is Francesco Saverio Teruzzi, Coordinator of the Rebirth / Third Paradise Ambassadors. His words move along a line of tension: between local and global, symbol and practice, art and concrete responsibility. This is a position that entails exposure, risk, and, above all, a continuous negotiation with the complexity of reality. Against a culture of urgency, programmed indignation, and closure, Teruzzi advocates for education as training in presence, for art as a device that relinquishes control in order to enter history, and for the value of staying, slowing down, and maintaining a quiet vigilance.

The year 2025 closed with the sense that the word “transition” has lost its force, replaced by widespread fatigue and a return to logics of power, war, and closure. In this context, does it still make sense to speak of responsible social transformation, or is it necessary to change the language and rethink practices?
Today the word “transition” feels tired because it has been used as a promise without a body. But transformation is not a word: it is an effort that returns, even when we think we have lost it. I don’t believe we need to change the language in order to escape the present; I believe we need to put our feet back on the ground of practice, where contradictions can truly be felt. Responsible social transformation is not a triumphant march: it is made of steps forward, pauses, sudden reversals. At times it seems to disappear, only to re-emerge in the least visible places. If the world today is reverting to logics of power, war, and closure, then speaking of responsibility is not naïve: it is radical. It means remaining open when everything pushes us to close.

In 2025, Cittadellarte continued to operate on both a local and global scale, from China to Europe’s border regions, from the Mediterranean to East Asia. Bringing an installation or a demopractic artwork into places charged with history, conflict, or symbolism exposes art to unpredictable interpretations. How important is it for the Foundation to accept this risk?
It is fundamental. If a demopractic artwork does not risk being misunderstood, then it is probably not touching anything alive. Bringing the Third Paradise or other practices into conflict-laden territories means giving up control. When art truly enters history, it is no longer protected. But that is precisely where it ceases to be a symbol and becomes a device of reality. Risk is not an accident along the way: it is the ethical condition of artistic action.

In 2026, what does it mean to educate for responsibility in a world where algorithms, artificial intelligence, and automation seem to be taking away more and more space from conscious human action and, in this sense, from authorship?
Educating today does not mean competing with machines, but recognizing what cannot be automated: choice, doubt, care, responsibility for consequences. Authorship is no longer about “doing everything,” but about taking responsibility for what one sets in motion. In this sense, education becomes training in presence rather than performance. With the Third Paradise, we do not train more efficient individuals, but human beings capable of responding.

During your time at Cittadellarte, what do you feel you have unlearned? Is there a belief you would let go of today compared to the past?
I have unlearned the idea that change must be visible, measurable, immediate. I have let go of the belief that being right is enough. Today I know that having a relationship is more important than winning a narrative. It is not about saying “I did ten, a hundred, a thousand,” because transformation does not advance through accumulation, but through resonance.

If we imagine Cittadellarte as a living organism, which part feels most fragile today? And which part feels more mature than you might have expected?
Without wishing to enter into economic matters, the most fragile part, for various reasons, is perhaps time: long time, the time needed for processes to mature without being swallowed by urgency. The most mature part, and perhaps surprisingly so, is the human network: a community that does not seek uniformity, but coherence within diversity. This was not a given, and today we can define it as a real strength.

We live in a time in which we are exposed daily to images of extreme suffering, and yet we often remain motionless. What kind of emotion is indifference? If indifference were a work of art, would you destroy it like the breaking of Pistoletto’s mirror?
Indifference is not the absence of emotion: it is emotion that has been anesthetized. It is a true form of defense. If it were a work of art, I would not destroy it. I would place it in front of a mirror - indeed, in front of one of Michelangelo Pistoletto’s mirror paintings - until it becomes unbearable for it to look at itself. Breaking is not violence: it is awareness.

In the dominant 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 spectacle of pain? Considering also that the Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year 2025 is “Rage Bait,” referring to content designed to provoke anger and outrage, especially on social media.
Art must not compete with programmed indignation. It must disarm it. Restoring faces to numbers means slowing down, subtracting, creating spaces for listening. Art can reactivate empathy only if it renounces easy shock and accepts the complexity of pain without turning it into spectacle. Responsible art does not shout: it stays. And by staying, it forces us to feel.

When you turn off the lights in your office, which emotion remains switched on?
A quiet vigilance, this is something I’ve learned from my cats. Not optimism, not resignation. A form of deep attention, as if something, despite everything, were still asking me not to abandon it.