Reasons to Be Optimistic: How Italy’s Art institutions Arose from the Pandemic
A country which was once the epicentre of COVID-19 has seen its art scene flourish thanks to the museums’ community-driven response to the crisis
One year on from Italy’s first wave of COVID-19 infections, frieze
contributing editor Barbara Casavecchia spoke with museum curators and directors in northern Italy to discuss
how the country’s cultural institutions responded to the crisis.
‘We are now where you will be in a few days,’ wrote novelist Francesca Melandri in a piece for the
Guardian newspaper in late March 2020. Her moving ‘letter from your future’ coincided with the beginning of the first pandemic wave in Italy. One year on, her words can be repeated – only this time with a more optimistic resonance.