Curating. Creating a Space of Sharing

As a person involved in curatorial research on contemporary art, I would like to present an experience centered on a law firm, ADVANT Nctm Studio Legale. Indeed, in 2010, the then Nctm Studio Legale launched nctm e l’arte, a project dedicated to contemporary art that is still alive today. Introducing art into an unconventional space with a strong professional connotation may seem to be a challenge, all the more so making the place a physical and conceptual platform that allows its visitors to interface with contemporary art, to live it as an experience, and to grasp its true meaning. Such intent required careful work on the relationship between the works and the space, understood as a context, not just a physical one. It was about understanding the people visiting the firm and their interactions. Great attention was paid to how art was integrated into the firm’s interior and thus to the quality of the experience of those working there or visiting it. This was in addition to the idea that a professional community is necessarily defined within itself and in relation to its context. For such reason, further work was devoted to establishing a meaningful dialogue with the outside world. Efforts were therefore made to make the firm an open, porous, and stimulating place. A program was created that provides an opportunity for exchange with a broader public. In addition, artistic projects relating to the territory were launched, starting with the city where the firm is based, Milan. Several initiatives dedicated to the city’s public cultural heritage were promoted. One of the most important initiatives concerned a fundamental artistic urban nucleus in the city’s central park, Parco Sempione. Among other things, the initiative represented, within the firm, an opportunity for reflection and an essential experience of relations with the public space and public institutions, not only municipal ones. On the whole, the project aims to create a space of sharing and to convey the vision of a professional reality strongly connected to the phenomena of the present, capable of a narrative of meaning and endowed with a strong planning perspective, capable of stimulating a sense of individual and collective belonging.