Throughout 2026, the Journal of Cittadellarte hosts a series of interviews with collaborators of the Foundation, all invited to respond to the same set of questions. Cittadellarte allo specchio - this is the name of the series - presents itself as an exercise in listening and self-reflection that moves across different roles, practices, and sensibilities, offering a plural portrait of the organism that is Cittadellarte. The questions touch on some of the most urgent issues of our time - from social transformation to responsibility, from education and indifference to the risks of artistic action and the possibility of reactivating empathy - and function like a mirror: they do not seek definitive answers, but ask those who respond to take a position, to expose themselves, and to interrogate their role in the present.

In this second installment, following the zero episode with Director Paolo Naldini and Rebirth/Terzo Paradiso Ambassadors Coordinator Francesco Saverio Teruzzi, the mirror turns toward Clara Pogliani. The Coordinator of Accademia Unidee crosses it, in the conversation that follows, without looking for shortcuts. Her responses unfold in a time marked by fatigue, political setbacks, and new forms of collective anesthesia, questioning the very meaning of the words used in the questions—transition, responsibility, community—and the risk that they may become empty formulas if not supported by practices capable of recalibration. From education to complexity and the role of art as a space for questioning rather than problem-solving, to demopractic work in contexts of conflict and the fragility and maturity of Cittadellarte’s internal community, her thinking rejects the spectacle of pain and emotional simplification. Instead, Clara chooses to slow down, to organise, and to inhabit the contradictions of the present as an act of responsibility.

The year 2025 comes to a close as one in which the word “transition” seems to have lost its force, replaced by a widespread sense of 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?
Rather than weakened, the word “transition” emerges from 2025 emptied of its social potential. If we look at it from the perspective of environmental issues, for example, transition—specifically in its energy dimension—has strengthened, with renewables officially surpassing coal as the world’s leading source of electricity generation. If we observe it in its ecological sense, however, there are far fewer milestones to celebrate. COP30 in Belém (the UN conference that annually brings together governments and organisations from around the world to decide the climatic future of humanity) lacked ambition in achieving objectives that would fulfil its deeper meaning: working toward a sustainable balance between human activities and the Earth’s ecosystem, which requires abandoning fossil fuels and realising an idea of social justice.
In rethinking the practices connected to the responsible social transformation that Cittadellarte promotes, I believe it is important to keep in mind a motto made famous by Antonio Gramsci: “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” Being aware that the political and social conditions of the world have changed, adapting our tools to carry forward challenges in a recalibrated way, while not relinquishing the ambition that a just transition remains the only path toward prosperity and justice worth pursuing.

This year as well, Cittadellarte has operated on both a local and global level: from China to border Europe, from the Mediterranean to East Asia. Bringing an installation or a demopractic work into places charged with history, conflict, or symbolism exposes art to unpredictable interpretations. How important is it for the Foundation to accept this risk?
The demopractic work is born precisely to gather the needs and intelligences that naturally exist within every social group. Imagining that it should be confined to politically or socially aligned spaces would, I believe, empty it of both its primary meaning and its potential. Over the years, we have seen projects develop around themes such as the right to food as well as encounters between cultures in conflict. Had Cittadellarte not opened itself to bringing its work to different parts of the world—with all their diversity and contradictions—it would not be possible to engage with art and society.

In 2025, what does it mean to educate to responsibility in a world where algorithms, artificial intelligence, and automation seem to subtract more and more space from conscious human action and, in this sense, from authorship?
Educating to responsibility, today as always, means educating to complexity. It means learning to recognise and anticipate the impacts and consequences of our choices—as individuals and as organisations—on ourselves and on others. This approach remains fundamental also in our relationship with every form of automation, and it is something I strongly believe is important to transmit through our work at Accademia Unidee.

Over the time you have spent at Cittadellarte, what do you feel you have unlearned? Is there a belief you would let go of today compared to the past?
At Cittadellarte, I have unlearned the idea that art must necessarily offer solutions, as the hard or social sciences do. The role of art is instead to open spaces of questioning, to suspend automatic answers, and to make visible the complexities and contradictions that traverse the present—without the pretence of resolving them, but by taking responsibility for inhabiting them.

Let’s try to consider Cittadellarte as a living organism. Which part feels most fragile today? And which part feels more mature than you would have imagined?
I feel that the most fragile and most mature part of Cittadellarte is the community. More fragile because I perceive a weakening of the work of care for the internal community, its relationships, and the needs of the people who inhabit it. More mature because that same community has been enriched over the years by the arrival of Accademia Unidee students. It has been a challenging test—both in terms of numbers and the specific needs that come with having an academy within Cittadellarte—but one from which I constantly see fertile relationships and ideas emerging.

We live in a time in which we are exposed daily to images of extreme suffering, yet we often remain motionless. What kind of emotion is indifference? If indifference were a work of art, would you destroy it like breaking Pistoletto’s mirror?
Indifference is, unfortunately, first and foremost a defence mechanism. We need to pause and remember to think of it as such, so as not to be overwhelmed by anger or judgment toward those who display it—also because it is an emotion that can surface in any of us at any moment. Rather than destroying it, I think it is important to show it in all its complexity, shifting the focus from the individual to the world. Exactly as a mirror painting does.

In the dominant media narratives of conflict, 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? Let us also consider that the Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year for 2025 is “Rage Bait,” referring to content designed to provoke anger and outrage, particularly on social media.
In dominant narratives of conflict, numbers function as a form of anesthesia: they organise reality but also make it more distant. Art does not have the task of replacing journalism or of “giving faces back” in an illustrative way. Its responsibility is rather to interrogate the mechanisms that produce this distance, to destabilise the way we look at and consume pain. In a media context increasingly oriented toward immediate reaction, empathy risks becoming a conditioned reflex rather than a transformative experience. Art can reactivate it only by withdrawing from spectacle: by slowing down, introducing complexity, and accepting opacity and silence. Rather than amplifying emotion, it can create spaces of attention in which anger is not the only possible form of engagement.

When you turn off the lights in your office, which emotion remains switched on?
More than an emotion, what remains switched on is the awareness that having the right ideas is not enough to change the course of things—one must organise.