Contemporary art enters the school with E-STRAORDINARIO jumps into school, the educational project that Fondazione Ermanno Casoli designed for E. Mannucci High School of Art in Ancona, Jesi and Fabriano, for the promotion of art as a pedagogic tool.
“With this initiative – states Francesco Casoli, vice president of the foundation dedicated to his father Ermanno, founder of Elica – we intend to reaffirm the school’s value and the importance of culture in the education of the young generations, as well as that of contemporary art as a hotbed of innovation.”
The project, curated by the foundation artistic director Marcello Smarrelli, will take place Monday 14 March at the Mannucci High School in Fabriano, where artist Ettore Favini will hold a workshop entitled Intervallo open to a group of students and teachers from different classes.

Francesco Casoli, Prof. Alfio Albani, Headmaster of the Mannucci High School, and Prof. Claudio Baldassarri, deputy of the High School premises in Fabriano and History of Art professor, will give an introductory talk.“The school and Fondazione Ermanno Casoli – explains Alfio Albani – share a common purpose: albeit being different realities, they both aim to promote cultural initiatives that may involve and enhance the territory. This is why it is was natural to create a synergy between the two institutions and to establish our collaboration.”
Since its foundation, Fondazione Ermanno Casoli has always worked at activities for the spreading of contemporary art in contexts different from those that traditionally host it, with methods that make art accessible to a general public. Besides the common location, the Mannucci High School of Art shares with the foundation the objective of promoting knowledge of contemporary art language, in the firm belief that this may stimulate thought and work as catalysts for the growth of the new generations.
On these grounds the Mannucci High School and Fondazione Ermanno Casoli have signed a convention for the realization of a series of training and learning projects on contemporary languages, involving students and teachers.
Ettore Favini’s workshop will follow an introductory phase during which the artist will present the essential theoretical contents of his work and the subject of the project: the often conflictual and contradictory relation between Man and Nature, addressed through a reflection on landscape.

The title Intervallo (Break) refers not only to break-time at school, but also to the break that used to be aired on RAI (Italian State Television) in the seventies and eighties between one program and another, showing postcards with views of Italian cities and landscapes, accompanied by the famous Toccata in A by Domenico Paradisi (1707-1791).
In his artistic research, mainly focused on memory understood as an archive of the natural flowing of time, Favini has often addressed issues related to ecology and to the relation human beings hold with the environment surrounding them. By using different techniques and materials (sculpture, installation, photography, etc.) his works range from more traditional works designed for exhibition spaces, to public art works on an environmental scale and territorial interventions.
With Intervallo the artist offers an analyses of possible definitions of landscape and cultural factors that determine different perceptions. Through an experiential path, the participants will be invited to express their personal idea on this topic and then elaborate it in the practical phase in the forms of representation connected to the concept of landscape. The work can be carried out individually or in groups choosing any form of expression. The outcome of the workshop, and video documentation of the activity carried out by the students will be exhibited in the high school hall until the end of the school year.