AMBASSADORS OF CULTURE ALONG THE SILK ROAD

Architect who, having had the good fortune to design places, objects and installations by collaborating with great professionals, has decided to continue to do so in the cultural field. Ideas arise from confrontation and are realized with teamwork. 

descendant of a dynasty whose origins are both Catalan and Byzantine, is an intellectual committed to the protection and promotion of the cosmopolitan heritage of which Sicily is an essential crossroads. Her tireless activity of books, conferences, forums, exhibitions and articles has the explicit aim of countering the “war of civilizations” by reviving the great Eurasian-African tradition along the Silk Road. She began her literary career at the age of 16 translating JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Skilled linguist, Arabist, Islamologist, in the 1980s she became an internationally successful writer with her bestseller “Harem”, which upsets Western clichés about Muslim women.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.repubblica.it/cultura/2017/05/14/news/vittoria_alliata_ho_vissuto_d_arte_e_di_grande_letteratura_-165440841/amp/

he graduated from Ca ‘Foscari in 1984 in Oriental Languages and Literatures. In 1992 he received his PhD in Civilization of Far East Asia at the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’. After graduation he studied at the National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei. Subsequently he carried out research at the Research Institute for Humanistic Study, Kyoto University (Japan), with a scholarship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and at the School of Oriental Studies, Italian Cultural Institute, Kyoto (Japan). From 2008 to 2018 he was Director of the Italian section of the Confucio Institute, receiving on 12 December 2017 from Liu Yandong (Deputy Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China) the Award for Excellence at the 12th World Conference of Confucius Institutes in Xi’An.

In the seventies she worked in cinema and advertising as assistant casting director and assistant director in American productions in Rome. From 1975 to 1978 she travelled extensively in India, for the making of the first documentary ‘Ladakh centre of steps’. During these first trips to India, she discovered and approached the world of fabrics. In 1985 she founded the Italy-India Association of which she was the President until 1993. She took care of curating the exhibitions “Leonardo da Vinci in India”, 1986; “I medici e i Moghul – Lo specchio del Principe” Edizioni dell’Elefante, Rome 1991. In 1995 she created Indoroman for the collection and use of fabrics still produced on a manual loom between the Mediterranean and India: a textile heritage to defend and spread.

These are some of the documentaries made:

“Xinjiang Nodo dell’Asia”, 2001, created for La Sapienza University, Dep. Oriental Studies (Audience Award at the Asian Film Festival in Rome November 2005);

“Gaia In India”, 2004, travel shots with a montage made by the video artist Theo Eshetu for Indoroman;

“Safari tessile”, 2005, a journey in search of the handcrafted textile varieties of Gujarat and Rajasthan (Northwest India), for Indoroman;

“La ruota del Khadi: l’ordito e la trama dell’India”, 2020, the documentary film that tells about India through its fabrics and evokes the figure of Gandhi, who made textile arts a social and political movement.

Representative of the ITALIAN UNESCO sites in the national technical table at the MIBAC, for the international twinning programs of UNESCO sites.

Member of the coordination table at MiBAC – International Relations Office for the twinning of UNESCO Italy-China sites

www.paesaggivitivinicoliunesco.it

that invented – created Brunello di Montalcino in the 1960s. He spent 5 years in the US working as a winemaker in California wineries (in Napa, in Sonoma); 5 years in England initially with and for the Antinori winery, then as an importer and distributor of Italian wines. Director of the wine magazine founded by Luigi Veronelli “L’Etichetta”. Founder, with Roberto Wirth and Steven Spurrier, of “The International Wine Academy of Rome”. In 2000 he founded, with Giuseppe Meregalli, Conte Gelasio Gaetani d’Aragona Srl – distribution of Italian and foreign wines – with the publisher Assouline NY, Bompiani and Mondadori. Director in charge of Wannenes auction house wine department. Writer and essayist. Founder of the Latium Wine Festival with Floriana Risuglia (ONAV, UGIV and ASS.NE italiana Donne del Vino) on the Wine of Sicily through three tourism projects.

www.gelasiogaetanidaragona.com

Founder and Artistic Director of the Britten-Shostakovich Festival Orchestra. He was Director of the Rome Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, the Orchester National Philharmonique and the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg, the Teatro Regio in Turin, the Symphonique de Flandres Orchestra in Belgium. Among the numerous orchestras, he has collaborated with the Orchestra of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia, the Royal Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic and Dutch Radio Philharmonic, Beijing Symphony Orchestra and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Among the most famous instrumentalists, he has collaborated with Stefano Bollani, Kristian Zimmerman, Maxim Vengerov, Mario Brunello, Christian Lindberg and, among the most famous singers, with Montserrat Caballé, Mirella Freni, Raina Kabaibanska, Sumi Jo, Margaret Price, Olga Borodina, Elena Garancha, Waltraud Meier, José Carreras, Placido Domingo, Nicola Martinucci, Renato Brusson, Thomas Hampson.

He founded and directed the first independent non-profit creative workshop in Shanghai, BizartArt Center, for a decade, as a platform to promote the local contemporary art scene. In 2007 he created Arthub, a production and curatorial proxy active in Asia and around the world (currently hosted by the Shanghai Visual Art Institute). He was curator for the Aurora Museum in Shanghai, he curated and produced the City Pavilion Project for the Shanghai Biennale 2012 and is part of the Curatorial Board of PAC, Pavilion of Contemporary Art in Milan, as well as responsible for the international curatorial program of Scene 44, Marseille, visual art production platform. He produced the 2020 edition of the Gwangju Biennial. With BizArte his team, and now with Arthub, has organized hundreds of exhibitions, educational activities and exchanges in China and abroad, developing relationships with local and foreign artists, independent organizations and institutions around the world.

Career in Cariplo, a leading Milanese bank, where he joined in 1969 and pursued a brilliant career. Responsible, on site, for the opening of the first foreign branches: London 1981 (after taking part in the Italian Everest ‘80 expedition in 1980, sublimating his passion for mountaineering) New York 1986, Hong Kong 1989; then in the Central Finance Service where he was appointed Manager. He was then responsible for the operating group in the merger with Banco Ambrosiano, until the creation of Banca Intesa, where he became Central Director after the merger with Banca Commerciale Italiana. He left the group in 2004. Passionate and scholar of contemporary art, he organized exhibitions of artists such as Boetti, Dadamaino, Lucio Fontana. Called back to the banking group, he left it permanently after 3 years. Responsible for the cultural events of the Circolo Filologico Milanese, the oldest cultural association in the city, since 2010 he has organized prestigious events: Milan, the language of the Sixties, with guests such as Christo, Inge Feltrinelli, P. Bassetti, E. Severino, V. Gregotti, B.Bozzetto, U. Eco, M. Moratti….  Vale Philosophia, cosa resta dei grandi, with G. Reale, G. Giorello, G. Vattimo, M. Cacciari, C. Sini, E. Severino … then directing the series of the same name published by Book Time, Cibo in evoluzione, from which he realized a docu-film selected and projected at Expo 2015 and then Epopea nello spazio with the famous cosmologist John David Barrow, the aerospace engineers Amalia Finzi, Patrizia Caraveo and the biologist Edoardo Boncinelli. He organized between Kyoto and Milan ‘L’arte del Giappone’ a complex event that involves artists and institutions from Kyoto, Osaka and Milan. Among the recent exhibitions ‘Lucio Fontana scultore’, which opened in London in 2017 and the following year it was re-proposed in galleries in Milan. Among the most recent exhibitions organized for the Filologico  ‘Novecento: il catalogo è questo’ and ‘I Futuri che ci aspettano’ which hosted internationally renowned speakers. Works from his art collection have been exhibited in important museums. He lives and works in Milan, participating in numerous private and institutional cultural projects.

founded in October 2016, The Branding Letters was born with the vocation of developing branding projects in which strategy and creativity feed each other during the brand management process. Branding letters stems from the belief that creativity has value only if it is rooted in strategic substance; just as strategy has value only if it can inspire an aesthetic of language.

Silvia Barbieri – Co-founder Chief Strategy officer

Chiara Pomati – Co-founder Chief Creativity officer