→ BAU
Bolzano, South Tyrol (IT)
BAU is a cultural organisation based in Südtirol – Alto Adige founded it 2015.
BAU deals with contemporary art projects that respond to questions of the present, conceiving of nature and culture together and regarding the human with its environment as part of an ecological cycle. The responsibility for the artistic direction has been with Lisa Mazza and Simona Mair since 2017.
The activities of BAU are concentrated in three areas: BAU Residency, BAU Alliances and BAU Agency.
The BAU Residency programme has been running since BAU was founded in 2015, inviting selected artists and collectives to design projects which respond to the specific situation of the rural Südtirol – Alto Adige and to implement them in collaboration with our local partners. The BAU approach always aims to facilitate respectful sharing of knowledge among equals.
In 2019 BAU changed its legal form from association to cooperative and added a further segment to its spectrum of activities: BAU Alliances are project-specific partnerships with cultural institutions where resources, knowledge and networks are shared with the common purpose of realising projects.
The third mainstay of our activities is BAU Agency, a platform for the provision of services to cultural institutions, the education sector and private enterprise. The purpose of these services is to facilitate the implementation of transdisciplinary art projects where international contemporary artforms enter into dialogue with local people, knowledge and things.
The name BAU was consciously chosen for its multiple meanings and associations, though the main emphasis is on the importance of the construction process. In Italian, the word BAU also suggests the barking of a dog. Being a space in constant construction, BAU does not define itself through a physical location.
