ABOUT US

Ramdom is an organisation devoted to cultural and artistic production and it is based in Gagliano del Capo (LE, Italy). It was founded in 2011 by

Paolo Mele and Luca Coclite with the aim of providing international projection to contemporary art projects produced in dialogue with the local territory of Salento. Over the past seven years activities have included exhibitions, public art productions, residencies and workshops, plus two ongoing research focused endeavours, Investigation of Extreme Lands and DEFAULT.

In 2016 it launched Until the End of the Sea Residency program dedicated to under 35 artists and curators.

Ramdom’s headquarter, Lastation, is located on the first floor of a still active railway station (Gagliano – Leuca ) in Southeast Italy and it host a Media Library, a residency room and an open space for exhibitions and performances.

OPERATIVE OFFICE

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Paolo Mele

Director and Founder

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

Project Manager & Administration

Annapaola Presta has a degree in Cultural Heritage and a master’s degree in Communication and Event Creation from the University of Florence. She has a professional background in the field of contemporary art, working as an assistant at the Florence University of Arts, a wide-ranging international environment that has allowed her to interact and confront herself with European and overseas artists. She has collaborated with public and private bodies for the realization of cultural and social promotion events.

Claudio Zecchi

Curatorial Staff & Network Development

Claudio Zecchi is an independent curator whose research is aimed at investigating new visions and readings of the public sphere analyzing the relationship between the practices, the territory and the local communities. He was part of the curatorial team of the Biennale of Young Artists from Mediterranean Europe (Ancona, 2013). His research project, which mainly investigates discursive formats, 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). From 2018 he joined Ramdom.
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Simona Casarano

Education

Graduated in Conservation of Cultural Heritage, she obtained a Master in Conservation and Restoration of Contemporary Art at the OPD in Florence and attended a course in Conservation and Restoration of Photography at Fratelli Alinari, also in Florence.
Between 2005 and 2010 he worked on the reorganization of the Archivio Etnomusicale P.Sassu in Spongano. In the same years he had short working experiences in the restoration of photographs between Palermo and Florence.
He cultivates a personal interest in pedagogy and since 2018 is responsible for the Education part of the Observatory on the Extreme Lands for Ramdom.
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Eleonora Castagna

Communication Manager

Eleonora Castagna (Este, 1989) obtained her bachelor degree in Modern Italian Art, Humanities and Literature from Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna. She received an MFA in Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies from NABA in Milan, spending six months at ITU in Istanbul as an exchange student. Her field of research includes public art and the politics of commons. Her MFA thesis focused on the role of social virtual platforms for the revolutionary movements in Turkey. Independent curator , free lance writer of contemporary art (for Diorama, Droste Effect and Alfabeta2), critic and cultural communication consultant, she took part in dOCUMENTA(13) as a Student Artist Assistant for the project AND…AND…AND with Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri. At RU (Court Street 360, Brooklyn), she worked with the Special Projects curator Ayelet Danielle Aldouby. She also worked at The Still House Group (in Red Hook, Brooklyn) as an Administrative Assistant. She attended the 25th session of the curatorial training program at the École du Magasin in Grenoble. She took part at Q-Rated workshop “Sensitive Research”, organized by La Quadriennale di Roma in Lecce. The past two years she worked at ChertLüdde gallery in Berlin.

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Luca Coclite

Founder

Luca Coclite’s personal research focuses on the analysis of the contemporary image in dialogue with the landscape and architecture as a ground on which to investigate different sociological factors that derive from it. For several years he has been observing the landscape and its socio-political contradictions, particularly concerning those territories in transformation. He uses a range of different visual languages such as drawing, photography and video. He also curated different artistic projects such as the Casa a Mare and Ramdom. In 2018 he founded the research studio Studioconcreto. He is also professor of digital video at Spazio Labò in Bologna. His work has been exhibited in various foundations and museums such as the National Gallery of Rome and the Fondazione del Monte di Bologna.

Heba Amin

Curatorial Staff

Heba Amin is an Egyptian artist and researcher, currently Visiting Assistant Professor at the American University of Cairo. She received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Minnesota, USA and she is currently the DAAD (German Academic Exchange) grant recipient and grant winner of Rhizome Commissions. Her work and research cover issues related to urban planning, mapping, cinema and technology. Her works have been exhibited all over the world, most recently at the Berlinale – 9th Forum Expanded Exhibition and IV Moscow International Biennial for Young Art, WRO 15th Media Art Biennale (Poland). Her repertoire ranges over several public lectures and many publications.

Francesca Girelli

Curatorial Staff

Francesca Girelli is a curator and writer based in London. For the past five years she has been working as curator and researcher for Arthub Asia, she is associate editor of Kaleidoscope Asia magazine, and has been part of DEFAULT curatorial team since 2013. In November 2016 Francesca has joined the Asian Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum to coordinate the development of a ground-breaking digital project focused on promoting a crosscultural analysis of Western and Asian iconography. She is currently Content Operations Manager at Frieze, London, UK and Curator Ramdom Association, Italy.

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

If you would like to join us or present a project to us, please contact us at: [email protected]
If you want to collaborate with us, send us an e-mail, specifying in the subject “collaboration” and attaching your CV.

We will get back to you as soon as possible.

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