San Gimignano
Beijing
Les Moulins
Habana
Roma
Sao Paulo
Paris
Dubai
Galleria Continua is a dynamic place that is open to interculturality and since its beginning it has looked to create links between contexts and make connections between different countries, in order to get traditions, cultures, art and the public to meet.
Motivated by the desire to explore complex and extensive cultural landscapes, Galleria Continua has “grown up” while expanding all over the world. In each of its locations, it has tried to contribute, to feed the dialogue between local communities and international networks, inviting them to share imagination and projects, to generate and regenerate the present and to imagine the future through art.
The activities done by Galleria Continua throughout the years have followed a unique path directed towards interaction with others and to overcoming geographical, personal and social boundaries. The gallery has proposed itself as an active space, a space of education, exchange, reflection and enrichment, and a place to cultivate memory and identity in relation to the present day.
Just as a child begins to speak by first storing sounds and then the meaning of words, art is learned by living it. The more you experience it, the more stimuli it can offer that leads you to understand the contemporary in a non-obvious and creative way. Through accessibility mechanisms and participation, Galleria Continua has embraced the idea that art is a tool for understanding, a way in which to develop awareness, a critical sense and openness towards culture; the work that has been done locally encourages us to think together about different ways of co-existing in society, about differences and similarities, sense of identity, belonging and inclusion.
ContinuActions aim to be moments of cultural and emotional sharing. Contemporary art becomes an opportunity to live a 360° creative experience. It is the starting point from which to live and recount what we can define as an aesthetic experience in which the artistic processes are emphasized and explained to students.
Since its opening, GALLERIA CONTINUA / Les Moulins has participated as a social actor in the Île-de-France area. Day by day Galleria Continua opens its doors to a variety of visitors including art-amateurs, art professionals, journalists and collectors as well as to a public which is less dedicated to contemporary art. While the welcome provides a genuine moment for coming together and sharing, the guided visits and the workshops are an opportunity for artistic and cultural exchange. The ContinuActions are not just a presentation of artworks and the artists’ approaches but a way to create an opening for the visitors to engage in sharing their vision about what they are discovering.
Contemporary art becomes an opportunity to live a 360° creative experience. It’s the starting point from which to live and recount what we can define as an aesthetic experience in which artistic processes are emphasized and explained to students. ContinuActions aim to become moments of cultural and emotional sharing.
From this desire to share, there have been many initiatives directed towards diverse audiences. The quality of our spaces, the industrial architecture, the wild flowers and the monumental artworks allow our audience to let go, to no longer feel like a visitor but simply to feel like a being. ContinuActions are an encompassing experience, our cultural mediators openly guide the public, always taking into account the audience they are with. School visits are conceived with teachers according to the specific needs of the children; each visit is unique. ContinuActions are based on quality education that transforms a simple guided visit into an experience to be lived. With this philosophy, Les Moulins launches a festival called Saison Nouvelle where the history and the memory of the Moulin de Sainte-Marie are presented through music, dance and education. Similarly, the Continua Skatepark is a true architectonic gesture in the landscape surrounding the Moulin de Sainte-Marie and opens up the gallery to new experiences.
Throughout the years CONTINUA Habana has produced hundreds of events, it’s been a crossroads for encounters, a space for life even before considering art, putting in place a symbiotic circle of mutual human, artistic and cultural enrichment.
Many exhibitions have been organized on location as well as externally: in institutions such as MNBA (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes), la Fototeca de Cuba, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam and UNAICC (Unión Nacional de Arquitectos e Ingenieros de la Construcción de Cuba) but also in marginalized neighborhoods (los Pozitos), at the University of Havana, at the ISA (Instituto Superior de Arte), in other cities (Pinar del Río) and in the main squares of Havana.
Meeting with the Cuban people also came about through a busy program of talks and presentations by artists, critics and curators – the “Charlas Continuas”, that in Spanish means conferences but also “continuous chats” – and through the sound session + poetry afternoons “P.A.S.E.” (Poesía, arte, sonido experimental), the 14 hours Festival of Music, Dance and Theatre and the theremin and buccal health teaching days.
Since the beginning of CONTINUA Habana’s activity, Michelangelo Pistoletto has organized events in Cuba that relate to the spirit and philosophy of this project. The artist, together with Laura Salas Redondo and the group they formed, founded inside the gallery one of the most active Third Paradise Embassies. Through this, together with the Galleria Continua team, they have organized events to promote sustainability, demopraxia and creativity. With the name “CRE-ARTE en Continua” they have done more than 100 workshops, for the most part aimed at children and teenagers from the area’s schools but also for the elderly and the gallery’s general audience.
From 2015, once a year every November, thanks to the collaboration between Pistoletto, the public institutions, the UN and the gallery, the Rebirth Forum takes place in some of the most emblematic places in Havana, like the Bertold Brecht Theatre and the Gran Teatro de La Habana Alicia Alonso. It’s an international event in which they discuss, by means of demopraxia, the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and they present projects that have taken place or will take place for that current year, such as the Third Paradise Embassy’s projects as well as the projects of all those who were invited.
Here you will find a selection of activities that allow moments of sharing and participation when at home, encouraging curiosity and independent learning. Through contemporary art we can get to know more about ourselves and others. These actions are an opportunity to deepen these connections and they can be a point of meeting for ourselves and our friends and family.
Coloring, collaging, drawing, cutting or building are just some of the things that these “drawings” could be used for. It’s really up to you.
Do these ContinuActivities and tag us on social media in your creations @galleriacontinua.
