Gabriele Simongini: AFAM should become a New European Bauhaus incubator

Gabriele Simongini argues that Italy's AFAM (Alta Formazione Artistica e Musicale) system, encompassing academies of fine arts, conservatories, and institutes for artistic industries, should be central to cultural and educational strategies. He suggests it could serve as an experimental incubator for the New European Bauhaus project launched by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, which aims to integrate art, industry, design, and ethics. Simongini highlights the academies' strength in combining theoretical and practical courses, echoing the original Bauhaus model. He criticizes the current state of AFAM as being stuck between secondary school and university, with a contract tied to the school sector and a single teaching category that distances it from university status. He calls for political vision and investment to transform AFAM into a true university-level excellence, addressing challenges such as the recent mobility ordinance that penalizes senior professors and the lack of control over unjustified chair conversions. Simongini quotes architect Daniel Libeskind on the human essence of creative gestures and emphasizes the need for a "technological humanism" to preserve human identity in the digital age.