ABOUT US

Ramdom is an association for social development focused on cultural and artistic production, based in KORA Contemporary Arts Center. It aims to design and create contemporary art projects on a global scale. Its activities are built up of exhibitions, public art productions, residencies, workshops and live performances.

Winner of the 6th, 8th and 10th edition of the Italian Council with the projects rs548049170_1_69869_TT (The Other Shapes of Me) by the artist Emilio Vavarella (2019), Tools for Imagination by the artist Céline Condorelli (2020) and Ex Situ by the artist Luigi Coppola of the 7th edition of the Lubumbashi Biennale (Congo) entitled Toxicity (2021). Ramdom is also a partner of Fluxo, a project by the artist Alessandro Sciarroni produced by Arthub and winner of the 9th edition (2020) of the Italian Council.

From July 2021 the association deals with KORA, a space for contemporary art production and research, located in approximately 1600 square meters within the historic walls of Palazzo De Gualtieriis in Castrignano de’ Greci. It hosts a museum with both permanent and temporary exhibitions, a library, creative and educational workshops and artistic residences.

It also gives place to conferences, events, performances and live shows. From 2022 Ramdom has been admitted to the public fund FUS 2022-24 in the field of music with the project Ogni Altro Suono. It consists in a Cultural Institution recognized by the Ministry of Culture pursuant to Article 8 of the law no. 534, October 17, 1996.

Ramdom is one of the founders of STARE, the association for Italian artistic residencies, and the European Network of Cultural Centres.

OPERATIVE OFFICE

Paolo Mele

Director and Founder

Founder of Ramdom together with Luca Coclite, he holds a PhD in Communication & New Technologies from IULM University in Milan and is a visiting researcher at The New School in New York (USA). Paolo is a cultural and digital project manager. He has worked with several international organisations, such as World Bank, New Art Exchange, Fondazione Veronesi, Fondazione Chivasso. He was project manager for the BJCEM Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean from 2008 to 2012. In 2006, he founded and coordinated the Observatory for Communication Policies (OCP) at the University of Salento. In 2018-19 he is among the project managers of Matera Capital of Culture 2019.

Annapaola Presta

Project Manager and administration office

Annapaola Presta holds a degree in Cultural Heritage and a first level master’s degree in Communication and Event Creation from the University of Florence. She made her professional debut in the field of contemporary art by working as an assistant at the Florence University of Arts, a broadly international environment that allowed her to interact and confront herself with European and overseas artists. She has collaborated with public and private organisations in the realisation of events for cultural and social promotion.

Claudio Zecchi

Artistic Director

Claudio Zecchi is Artistic Director of Ramdom. His research aims to investigate new visions and readings of public space by analysing the relationship between practices, territory and local communities. He was part of the curatorial team of the Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean (Ancona, 2013). His projects took place at Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan (Italy, 2014); Residency Unlimited, NYC (U.S.A. 2015); New Art Exchange, Nottingham (U.K 2016); Pivô Pesquisa, São Paulo (BRA, 2017); TOKAS_Tokyo Arts and Space, Tokyo (JAP, 2018). In 2019, he was one of the members of the jury of the Bonaldi Prize for Art dedicated to curators under 30. He has been working with Ramdom since 2017.

Ada Facchini

Librarian

Ada Facchini holds a degree in Physics from the University of Salento, with three years’ international research experience in planetology and star formation. She has cultivated an interest in writing and storytelling in all its forms: the creative side of fiction, the scientific side of popularisation and the image-based side of cinema. In 2020 he specialised in the field of protection, management and valorisation of cultural heritage, graduating in Library Science at the School of the Vatican Library.
She has collaborated in the planning and organisation of cultural activities in the institutional and association spheres, questioning what happens around books: from writing to promotion, from reading education for children and young people to the creation of territorial networks between schools and cultural operators to introduce books as a social practice.

Simona Casarano

Education

She has a degree in Conservation of Cultural Heritage, a Master’s degree in Conservation and Restoration of Contemporary Works of Art from the OPD in Florence and attended a course in Conservation and Restoration of Photography at Fratelli Alinari, also in Florence.
Between 2005 and 2010 she worked on the reorganisation of the P.Sassu Ethnomusical Archive in Spongano. In the same years he had brief work experiences in the restoration of photographs between Palermo and Florence.
She cultivates a personal interest in pedagogy and since 2018 has been in charge of the Education part of the Observatory on Extreme Lands for Ramdom.

Veronica Centonze

Production Manager

Veronica Centonze has a degree in Editorial Graphics and a master’s degree in digital graphics from the Academy of Fine Arts in Lecce.
Since 2016, she has dedicated herself completely and to production, using different media and different forms of language pertaining to the visual arts, moving between Lecce, Naples and Venice. her research and artist practice range from illustration to painting to the performing arts, researching the relationship between body, form and space.
In 2019 he joined ‘Peninsula’, an interdisciplinary platform presenting exhibitions and projects in collaboration with the international art scene in Berlin. Since 2021 he has been working with Ramdom as production manager at Kora Contemporary Arts Center.

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Lara Gigante

Communication Office

Lara Gigante graduated in Philology and Literature of Antiquity from the University of Salento, focusing her study interest on ancient history and cultural anthropology. She furthered her research at the Universities of Turin and Padua in Germanic Philology and Ancient Geography. He cultivated an interest in critical writing and storytelling on contemporary issues and the visual arts, becoming a publicist journalist. She attended the Master in Marketing for Exhibitions and Museums, at Napier Academy in Milan, and attended the writing and editing school for cultural magazines “Il Tascabile” by Treccani in Rome. She has collaborated and collaborates as a cultural editor with urkaonline, quisalento, singola.net, artslife.it, and edits a column dedicated to artists’ publications and contemporary publishing on formeuniche.org.

WORK WITH US

You can view current open positions in the WORK WITH US section.

Ramdom is constantly evolving: we welcome new collaborations with organisations and individuals motivated to engage in cultural and artistic production, international mobility, research and development of new communication languages.

If you would like to join us or submit a project, please contact us at: info@ramdom.net
If you would like to collaborate with us, please send us an e-mail, specifying ‘collaboration’ in the subject line and attaching your CV.

We will get back to you as soon as possible.