UniversoAssisi Festival Launches in Umbria with Joseph Grima as Artistic Director

Joseph Grima, newly appointed creative director of the Design Academy Eindhoven and co-curator of the 2015 Chicago Architecture Biennial, is the artistic director of UniversoAssisi – a Festival in Secret Places. The multidisciplinary event, organized by the City of Assisi with the Fondazione Internazionale Assisi, runs from July 20 to 23, 2017. It features music, theater, dance, poetry, literature, philosophy, animated cinema, and architecture across historic streets, squares, noble palaces, and natural sites like Monte Subasio Park and the Bosco di San Francesco. Highlights include a dialogue between Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist on Superstudio (July 21, Tempio della Minerva); Stefano Boeri in conversation with Grima (July 20, Palazzo Vallemani); concerts by Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio (July 20) and Agar Agar (July 22); theater by Marco Paolini, Antonio Rezza, and others; dance by Aterballetto; and poetry readings by Mariangela Gualtieri, Davide Rondoni, Milo De Angelis, and more. The festival also features an animated cinema section curated by Joseph Feltus and Igor Prassel, and experimental concerts in the Mortaro Grande dolina by ArcHertz—Assisi. The closing concert by Nicola Piovani is titled "La musica è pericolosa" (July 23). The coordination team includes Paolo Ansideri, Enrico Sciamanna, Lorenzo Chiuchiu, Fulvia Angeletti, Lucia Fiumi, and Gianluca Liberali.