Fresh ideas from museums around the globe in your inbox each week
Paola Catizone is a Visitor Engagement Facilitator at IMMA, where she delivers a variety of workshops and courses for audiences of all ages.
These have included Azure Programs, using specialized methodology to foster communication and conviviality for people living with dementia through engagement with the IMMA Collection. In the last three years she has presented a number of IMMA Azure videos which were distributed online and on social media.
Between 2020 and 2021, Paola designed and delivered Breaking Cover, Art and Ecology Encounters, an IMMA programme aimed at exploring the role of art, and of Performance Art in particular, in actively contributing to systemic change in the ecological and climate emergency.
Paola is a visual artist who works primarily with performance art, installation, drawing and relational processes. She is a movement and embodiment practitioner and has facilitated courses and training for over three decades in a variety of settings.
The Museum as a Site of Ecological Resistance
Breaking Cover at IMMA was designed as an innovative programme to explore the links between art and socio-ecological activism. In March 2020, amidst public lockdowns, images of wild animals roaming city streets began to appear online. Despite its challenges, the pandemic offered a window of opportunity to re-imagine our relationship with the living world; with human activity paused, nature was breaking cover. These images inspired a new programme for IMMA; examining the role of the museum in the climate crisis, exploring it as a site for social action, and showcasing art as a potent tool for change.