Throughout 2026, the Cittadellarte Journal hosts a series of interviews with collaborators of the Foundation, each invited to respond to an identical set of questions. Cittadellarte in the Mirror—the title of the column—positions itself as an exercise in listening and self-reflection that moves across different roles, practices, and sensibilities, offering a plural portrait of the Cittadellarte organism. The questions touch on some of the most urgent issues 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 rather ask respondents to take a position, to expose themselves, to question their role in the present.

In this seventh installment, the mirror turns toward Andrea Calciati, an entrepreneur active in communication and marketing for over 20 years. He runs a company specializing in digital branding and advertising and a second company dedicated to the production of events and conferences. Since 2025 he has also been co-founder of a start-up created to develop the interaction between artificial intelligence and modern communication devices applied to sustainable tourism. For nearly seven years at Cittadellarte, he has been responsible for communication and orientation for the Accademia Unidee, as well as supporting other offices in digital communication. In the interview that follows, he reflects on the crisis of the word “transition,” the centrality of individual and collective responsibility, and the role of art in an ecosystem dominated by algorithms and polarization, exploring the tensions of the present and the possibility of building new forms of awareness and relationship within and beyond Cittadellarte.

2025 closes as a year 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 lexicon and rethink practices?
I believe that rather than speaking about responsible social transformation, it is necessary to speak about responsibility. In this historical phase, where the traditional welfare state is creaking, responsibility comes from the ground up and seems not to affect those at the top, who paradoxically have more opportunities to change things. At this moment, language is merely a tool that is not properly understood or managed except by those broad, generalist movements that simply exploit the horizontal leveling of debate more effectively. Rather than changing the lexicon, I would consider it more important to reflect on what can be done to bring debate closer to the masses and to restore ethical and civic meaning to people’s everyday lives. I believe, for example, that to achieve this we need to simplify narratives and find ways to make them feel less exclusive and less elitist.

This year as well, Cittadellarte has operated on both local and global levels: from China to Europe’s border regions, from the Mediterranean to East Asia. Bringing an installation or a demopractic work to places laden with history, conflict, or symbolism exposes art to unpredictable readings. How important is it for the Foundation to accept this risk?
I believe Cittadellarte must take risks in order to remain within the current debate. I am not at all enthusiastic about the polarization and the escalation of tones we see today, but while it is right to try to change the present climate, I also believe it is correct to acknowledge change and adapt to the moment we are living in: a time in which civic and social neutrality is already a choice in itself. Accepting this risk can help balance today’s society, which is so inclined toward confrontation and extremism.

In 2026, what does it mean to educate for responsibility in a world where algorithms, artificial intelligence, and automation seem to take up ever more space at the expense of conscious human action and, in this sense, authorship?
In 2026, education can only pass through awareness. Awareness of the bias of many media outlets, awareness of the dangers of the malicious use of artificial intelligence, awareness of an unintended (?) polarization of communication and perception in the world. Dissemination and education start from this simple yet difficult point. For me, educating toward awareness means going back to basics—teaching the fundamentals of language, history, and society in order to learn how to navigate this modern world. A conscious society is able to listen, judge, discern, and make decisions, even admitting mistakes when necessary and even—indeed—changing its mind. I believe the rest can come later.

During your time at Cittadellarte, what do you feel you have unlearned? Is there a conviction you would now let go of compared to the past?
I have been at Cittadellarte for almost seven years now, and if I had to venture an answer, I would say I have unlearned the habit of looking at form before substance. Nowhere else have I seen such heterogeneous people, ideas, and stories being listened to and valued for what they had to teach. At Cittadellarte, people’s nature is truly considered, without prejudice or preconceptions. It sounds like a simple idea, but in 2026 it feels almost like a utopia.

Let us imagine Cittadellarte as a living organism. Which part feels most fragile today? And which feels more mature than you would have imagined?
The beauty of Cittadellarte lies in the multiplicity of its offices, initiatives, and projects, but at times this risks becoming its weakness. The mission of the Pistoletto Foundation to follow projects closely and not let the many splendid initiatives that pass through its rooms fade away sometimes risks dispersing the energies and attention of the people who inhabit it. The maturity that has surprised me instead—though perhaps I am biased—is the capacity the Academy has developed to grow, especially through its incredible community made up of an increasingly international core of students and teachers who learn and mature through the union of their different cultures and life experiences.

We live in a time in which we are daily exposed to images of extreme suffering, yet often remain immobile. What kind of emotion is indifference? If indifference were an artwork, would you destroy it like a breaking of Pistoletto’s mirror?
As far as I am concerned, indifference is the absence of emotion, so I would not define it so much as an emotion but rather as a product of the modern economy and society, which work hard to remove the human factor from the equation: workers are called resources, companies are measured in balance sheets and EBITDA. Moreover, the media bombardment of divisive news and content has led to a numbing of the human spirit that is, in some respects, worrying. Rather than destroying it like a mirror, I would use it as one—reversing the communicative concept and reflecting indifference itself, amplifying it and putting it on display, in order to help identify it and, subsequently, to combat it.

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? We should also consider that the Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year 2025 is “Rage Bait,” referring to content created to provoke anger and indignation, especially on social media.
Contemporary art has always been an expression of contemporary society, thanks to the eyes of artists who have consistently observed it. I believe that in order to truly touch people’s hearts and awaken them, art must genuinely try to understand this chaotic and repellent society. The real challenge for an artist may be to emerge amid the hypertrophy of “creatives” that the internet has enabled to grow, ensuring that their voice rises enough to be heard. I do not believe art’s role is to forcibly teach how to reclaim our humanity, but I do believe it can imagine and point toward the path to a new humanity—perhaps deeper and less superficial and indifferent than the one we see today.

When you switch off the lights in your office, which emotion remains switched on?
At the end of the day, what often remains is a sense of fatigue in noticing how the most basic values—such as empathy and cooperation—tend to dissolve all too easily within workplace dynamics. Yet at times I encounter those very same values during the working day, and coming across these moments of unexpected humanity, even if far too rarely, leaves me with a more intense emotion than I could hope for.