Faculty

Full Professor of History of Contemporary Art – Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna

Francesco Spampinato conducts research in the fields of contemporary art history and visual studies, with a focus on the relationships between contemporary art, media, and technology. His latest publications include: GMM – Giovanotti Mondani Meccanici: Computer Comics 1984–1987 (NERO, 2021), Art vs. TV: A Brief History of Contemporary Artists’ Responses to Television (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), Ran Slavin: Shapeshifter (Mousse Publishing, 2022) and The Pandemic Visual Regime: Visuality and Performativity in the COVID-19 Crisis (Punctum Books, 2023). Spampinato is PI for the University of Bologna of the "Micro-Credential in Sustainability" and the "Virtual Exchange for Sustainability," wo innovative study course developed within UNA Europa and funded by the European Commission. He's also PI of the research project Skank Bloc Bologna: Alternative Art Spaces Since 1977, winner of the Italian Council 2022 grant promoted by the ltalian Ministry of Culture and a member of the extended consortium PE11 “Circular and Sustainable Made-in-Italy” sponsored within the NRRP (PNRR)

Senior Assistant Professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication – Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna.

She carries out research in the field of participation and civic imagination processes, cultural participation, the role of culture and artistic practices in the production of well-being and social change and study of audiences and participatory cultures. She holds her doctorate in Sociology. She has been a research fellow at the Department of Arts of the University of Bologna and at the Department of Sociology and Business Law of the University of Bologna, in the context of various European projects. She has been collaborating for many years with the Center for Advanced Studies on Consumption and Communication of the Department of Sociology and Business Law.  She collaborates on a scientific and methodological level with the Foundation for Urban Innovation. For several years she has designed and facilitated action-research processes with public bodies and associations.

Associate Professor of History of Contemporary Art and Photography – Ca' Foscari, University of Venice 

Her research focuses on contemporary artistic practices in relation to ecology, nature, and the Anthropocene, with particular attention to the archive as artistic metaphor, appropriation, reenactment, and visual culture. She is affiliated with THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Environmental Humanities (NICHE), where she coordinates the “Ecological Art Practices” research cluster and the “Art Ecologies” series. Baldacci has published extensively on ecological and archival dimensions in contemporary art, including the monograph Archivi impossibili (2016) and edited volumes such as Venice and the Anthropocene: An Ecocritical Guide (2022) and Over and Over and Over Again: Reenactment Strategies in Contemporary Arts and Theory (2022). She is co-director of the book series The Future Contemporary and has been a fellow at the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry. She is also a member of the Global Art Archive (Universitat de Barcelona) and former convenor of the “Re-” Interdisciplinary Network at CRASSH (University of Cambridge). Alongside academic research, she works as an art critic and curator, collaborating with major institutions such as Museo del Novecento, Triennale Milano, and Fondazione Prada.

Researcher in Sociology of Cultural and Communication Processes – Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna

Valentina Cappi, Ph.D, is tenure track researcher at the Department of Interpreting and Translation at the University of Bologna, where she teaches "Climate change communication, media, and sustainability", "Sociology of cultural and communicative processes" and "Gender and Sociology".Her research interests concern the relationships between media narratives, imagery and social practice, with particular reference to migration processes and climate change. Her current research project is on “The media communication of interculturality: narratives and representations of otherness.” The research project she conducted between 2021 and 2024 was on “Regenerating Climate Change Communication. Action-research with key players in raising awareness of the ecological transition.” She is in the research team of the Horizon Europe project “Alphabetica” and has collaborated on other Horizon2020 projects, including Perceptions. Previously she dealt with the role of media in the social construction of knowledge about illness and she conducted applied research on the transformations of health professions and the organization of healthcare in Italy.

Assistant Professor of Business Administration and Management – Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan

Dr. Giacomo Ciambotti is an Assistant Professor of Strategy at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan). He’s also Research Fellow at ALTIS Graduate School of Sustainable Business. Dr. Ciambotti is the research team lead at the E4Impact Foundation, which delivers programmes in impact entrepreneurship and sustainability in more than 20 African countries. Dr. Ciambotti researches the management, strategies and models of social entrepreneurs and businesses, exploring the role of those actors toward societal changes and sustainable development. His works mainly focus on African countries (including in Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Rwanda) and have been published in several international journals, including Journal of Business Ethics and International Small Business Journal.

Born in Lecce (Italy) based in Brussels, he is artist, agroecologist, and author of participatory projects driven by an innovative approach to the politics of the Commons is an advocate for collective action. His work is oriented towards site-specific research of social, political, and cultural subjects, collectivization of goods, activation of relational dynamics, and processes of emancipation and imagination. Since 2013, he has been engaged with Casa delle Agriculture in Castiglione d’Otranto (Lecce, Italy), where he serves as a co-activator of a multifaceted process of participatory agriculture, the reclamation of contaminated lands, and the establishment of a participatory economy revolving around the annual festival Notte Verde. The project, entitled Agriculture, Utopias and Community, comprises the Common Park of Minor Fruits and School of Agriculture. This pedagogical platform combines agroecological knowledge with artistic strategies and builds relationships with migrant communities, students, farmers and activists. The project is outlined in the publication Ex Situ – Compatible with life (2023). 

Associate Professor of Cinema, Photography and Television – Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna 

Marco Cucco is Associate Professor and Head of the postgraduate Master in Film and Audiovisual Management at the Department of Arts, University of Bologna. He received his PhD in Communication Sciences at the University of Lugano (Switzerland), and he has been visiting scholar at several universities: City University of New York (USA), Université de Lorraine (France), University of Leeds (UK), and Universiteit Antwerpen (Belgium). His research interests concern mainly film industry and policy. He wrote three books and many articles published by international peer-reviewed journals like Studies in European Cinema, Film Studies, European Journal of Communication, Media, Culture & Society, Journal of Transcultural Communication, Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies. He is currently vice-chair of the Film Studies Section of ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association, and member of the editorial board of the scientific journal Economia della cultura. In 2022, he received the National Scientific Qualification as Full Professor.

Professor of History of Art and Visual Culture and Director of Center for Creative Ecologies – University of California, Santa Cruz

T. J. Demos is an award-winning writer on contemporary art, global politics, and ecology. He is Professor in the Department of the History of Art and Visual Culture, at University of California, Santa Cruz where he is Founder and Director of the Center for Creative Ecologies. His research focuses on the intersection of contemporary art, ecology, and global politics, exploring how artistic practices can challenge dominant socio-political and economic paradigms. He is the author of numerous books, including his most recent Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics and Justice (Sternberg Press, 2023). Moreover, he is author of some important texts such as Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today (Sternberg Press, 2017); Decolonizing Nature: Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology ( Sternberg Press, 2016), and The Migrant Image: The Art and Politics of Documentary during Global Crisis (Duke University Press, 2013), which won the 2014 Frank Jewett Mather Award. With the Center for Creative Ecologies, he led the Mellon-funded project Beyond the End of the World (2018–20), addressing questions of social justice and futurity in the context of ecological crisis. During 2018-20, with the Center for Creative Ecologies, Demos has worked on Beyond the End of the World, a Mellon-funded research project, series of art exhibitions, and book project dedicated to the questions: What comes after the end of the world? And how can we cultivate futures of social justice within capitalist ruins?

Senior Researcher in Food Science – University of Helsinki

Silvia Gaiani is a Senior Researcher at Ruralia Institute, University of Helsinki where she is currently leading research on Innovations and entrepreneurship towards a sustainable transition of the food system. Before joining Ruralia Institute, Silvia has worked for FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations at its headquarters in Rome, Italy and WMO, the World Meteorological Organization of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Her research and consultancy activities focus on the sustainability of the food supply chain, food innovation and entrepreneurship, food security. Silvia holds a master degree in International Relations and two PhDs, one in International Cooperation and Policies for Sustainable Development and one in Food Politics and Economics.

Assistant Professor of Management – Jagiellonian University, Krakow

Dr Maciej J. Grodzicki is an economist, assistant professor at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland; board member of the Polish Economic Network. A laureate of P.R.I.M.E. fellowship of German DAAD, conducted at the University of Bremen and the University of Sussex. In his research, he has analysed the contemporary international inequalities, industrial policies, development and global value chains, in the evolutionary and neo-Kaleckian schools of economic thought. Currently, he is also involved in the Marxist ecological economics, investigating the political economy of commons, forestry and de-growth.

Academy Research Fellow of Practical Philosophy – University of Helsinki

Säde Hormio is an Academy Research Fellow in Practical Philosophy at the University of Helsinki. She is also affiliated with the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm. Her research focuses on collective responsibility and social epistemology, including climate ethics. She is also interested in questions such as what is the shared responsibility of individuals for changing harmful collective practices, what we mean by the responsibility of collective agents, or how to respond to disinformation. Hormio has published various articles and co-edited two volumes. She has just published her first monograph, Taking Responsibility for Climate Change (Palgrave Macmillan 2024). 

Based in Bologna, he is an Italian freelance photographer and photojournalist and Co-Founder of the collective project Arcipelago-19 (a pandemic atlas about the pandemics), he has studied Development Economics and International Cooperation at the University of Florence and holds a Master’s Degree in Development, Cooperation and Human Rights from the University of Bologna. His photographic work is characterized by a deep interest in social, political and environmental issue: over the years he has reported on civil rights struggles, documented migratory flows on the borders with Eastern Europe and witnessed the environmental impact of global climate change among them, the most recent floods in Emilia-Romagna region. Moreover, he has collaborated with La Repubblica since 2016, he has collaborated with numerous magazines and media. 

PhD Student of History of Contemporary Art– Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna 

Sara Molho is a PhD student in Visual, Performing and Media Arts at the University of Bologna (supervisor prof. Francesco Spampinato). She concluded the Scuola di Specializzazione in Beni Storico Artistici at the University of Milan discussing the thesis Per una ''pratica fantastica nel quotidiano''. Scenari fantascientifici, estetica cyberpunk e ricerche artistiche collettive a Milano da ''Un'Ambigua Utopia'' a ''Decoder'' (supervisor prof. Giorgio Zanchetti, co-supervisor prof. Silvia Bignami). Previously, she received her Master's Degree in History and Criticism of Art with a thesis on the participative practices in the work by Cesare Pietroiusti. Lately, she delved into the interactions between visual arts, virtual communities, and technologies in the Eighties and Nineties in Italy.  

Phd Student of History of Contemporary Art – Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna 

Simona Maria Pagano is a PhD student in Arts, History, Society at the University of Bologna. She holds a Second Cycle Degree in Arts, Museology and Curatorship from the same institution, with a thesis developed in collaboration with the University of Helsinki titled Art, Sovereignty and Climate Justice: The Indigenous Responses by Sámi Artists, which explored Sámi contemporary art and visual culture in relation to environmentalism and sustainable practices. She previously earned a degree in Archaeology, History of the Arts and Cultural Heritage Sciences at the University of Naples “Federico II”, with an early thesis on participatory art in 1970s Campania. Her research focuses on the intersection of participatory artistic practices, ecology, and sustainable technologies, from agroecology to speculative approaches in digital innovation. She is an activist and a member of the AVEC (Art, Visuality and Electronic Culture) graduate student workshop, with which she has collaborated and presented at various conferences at the Department of the Arts since 2021.  

Associate Professor of Management – Jagiellonian University, Krakow

Dr. Michał Pałasz, assistant professor at the Department of Contemporary Culture of the Institute of Culture, Jagiellonian University in Krakow (Poland). He studies management in the Anthropocene, which he understands as ways of organizing a sufficiently good common world in times of climatic and ecological catastrophe. He is interested in degrowth, posthumanism, actor-network theory, environmental humanities, climate education and their relations with management, especially humanistic management and critical management studies. Scientific editor of the books "The End of the World in Five Minutes. Climate-ecological Crisis in the Voice of Multiple Sciences" (with Kasia Jasikowska, 2022) and "To the Heart. Managing Social Engagement Through Media, Music and Marketing" (2023). Member of, among others Climate Council of the Jagiellonian University, Culture and Media Management Committee of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, Humanistic Management Network and International Degrowth Network.

Visual Artist and Cross-Disciplinary Mediator

Based in Milan, his practice bridges contemporary art, quantum physics, cosmology, and computer science. Graduated in Painting from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan with a specialisation in computer graphics and systems, he collaborates with visionary scientific communities such as Loop Quantum Gravity (PI), CERN’s Compact Muon Solenoid, and NASA’s Fermi Large Area Telescope. His work explores complex theoretical concepts—like quantum gravity and multi-messenger cosmology—through hybrid installations combining electromagnetic levitation, VR/AR, magnetized sculptures, and performative photography. Notable projects include The Messengers of Gravity (MEF, Turin), The Star Platform (Marrakech Biennale), and Blazing Quasi-Stellar Object (CERN), as well as participation in Documenta 14 with the Eternal Internet Brotherhood. His pieces are held in major public and private collections including the Mart (Rovereto), MAMbo (Bologna), and the Farnesina Collection. Recent works, such as Rosetta Mission 2020 (winner of the ERC An-Iconology grant) and Hyperinascimento (FMAV), reflect his ongoing inquiry into a new hyper-technological humanism. In 2023, he received the VDA Award for Digital Arts.

PhD student of Performing Arts – Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna 

Emanuele Regi is a PhD student in Visual, Performing and Media Arts at the University of Bologna. At the same University he attended a Bachelor's degree in Arts, Music and Performing Arts and a Master's degree in Music and Theatre Disciplines (Theatre Curriculum).
His field of research is the relations between the performing arts and nature, conducting research that addresses the historical-methodological aspect, a mapping of contemporary phenomena (artists, companies, festivals and residencies) and, finally, the economic and project aspect in the context of the UNESCO MaB Biosphere Reserves. He has organised numerous conferences with artists, scholars and practitioners on this topic: Connessioni Scena Natura (2022), Convention di Eirene - Danzare per la terra and Parole in cammino II (2023).
He also works in the field of theatre criticism for magazines such as Gagrin Magazine, AltreVelocità and Triennale Magazine. 

Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy – University College of Dublin 

Liana Ricci is Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy at the School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy at UCD. She holds an MSc in Environmental Engineering and a PhD in Urban and Land-Use Planning. Before joining UCD, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Contract Professor at La Sapienza University of Rome. Her research focuses on the interface between human and environmental systems, particularly in urban planning, climate change adaptation, and alternative infrastructure. Between 2010 and 2016, Liana led and collaborated on several projects in coastal Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, addressing climate adaptation and water infrastructure resilience. She was part of the EU-funded ACCDAR project (2009–2015). She has also worked at the European Commission’s DG CLIMA as a policy assistant, and at UN-Habitat, contributing to the Cities and Climate Change Initiative

Lecturer of Physical Sciences– University of Helsinki

Dr. Laura Riuttanen is a university lecturer in atmospheric sciences at the University of Helsinki Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR). She leads Climate University, network of 25 HEIs in Finland to develop and foster climate change and sustainability teaching in higher education. She is also an academic lead of Una Europa Micro-Credential in Sustainability.

Phd Student of History of Contemporary Art – Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna

Beatrice Sartori is a PhD student in Arts, History and Society at the University of Bologna with a research on virtual bodies, avatar and proxy identities at the intersections between Post-internet and Posthuman contemporary artistic practices. She graduated in Arts, Museology and Curatorship MA program discussing the thesis “Visual Pandemic: Street Art Representations of Covid-19”. Since September 2022 she has been a practice-based researcher at Studio Riccardo Benassi for which she supervised the artist book Daily Dense Dance Desire (DDD) published by Distanz in 2023. Since 2021 she has been on the board of AVEC (Art, Visuality and Electronic Culture), a graduate student workshop at the University of Bologna active in engaging researchers, curators, artists and philosophers in investigating the complexity of post-internet digital culture. 

Assistant Professor of Management – Jagiellonian University, Krakow

Member of the Strategic Management Society. Involved in an ongoing collaboration with the University of Canterbury Business School (New Zealand). Visiting Professor at the Università Degli Studi di Pisa (Italy). Author of the Methodology of Identification of Strategic Stakeholders® (MISS). Anna’s research interests revolve around value creation in a broad sense, as a core purpose of any social system. She is particularly intrigued by how social, organizational, and cognitive factors shape the decision-making processes and strategic choices regarding stakeholder approach. Her expertise also lies in applying the stakeholder approach to studies on CSR and ESG. Graduate of the Jagiellonian University in Business Administration and Journalism and Social Communication.

Associate Professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication – Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna

He's a researcher and teacher in sociology, with a focus on culture and media. He has studied at the University of Bologna, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Milan, and was a Fulbright Scholar at New York University. His cultural field includes cultural production, digital media and visual culture, with a focus on processes of social and technological innovation. His research focuses on magazine photography, global crises and their political impact on social media, popular music and national identity. At the University of Bologna, he's a member of DAMSLab, a laboratory focused on cultural urban valorisation at the Faculty of Arts.

Associate Professor of History of Modern Art – Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna 

Maria Vittoria Spissu was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow (2022–2025) at the Center for Renaissance Studies of the Newberry Library in Chicago. Her research focuses on the Mediterranean Renaissance, Flemish/Spanish painting and illumination, and religious/social otherness. She also works on Ibero-American painting (16th–18th centuries), the circulation of ideas and models (visual, moral, political), illustrated printed books, Iberian imperialism, and global Catholicism. She was part of the project Spanish Italy and the Iberian Americas (Columbia University/Getty Foundation). She is the author of Il Maestro di Ozieri. Le inquietudini nordiche di un pittore nella Sardegna del Cinquecento and La Via dei Retabli. Le frontiere europee degli altari dipinti nella Sardegna del Quattro e Cinquecento. She has edited Il Mito del Nemico. Identità, alterità e loro rappresentazioni and Storie dell’arte dai mondi iberici: materiali, problemi, geografie. She has published numerous essays and taken part in conferences across Europe, the United States, and Latin America.

Postdoctoral Researcher in Educational Sciences – University of Helsinki

Marianna Vivitsou works as project planner for OLIVE-Teacher Education Without Walls. Her research focus is on hybrid pedagogies, sustainability and transformative learning. She is interested in policies and practices for sustainable university future-oriented hybrid pedagogies and the imaginaries that emerge with the use of digital technologies in teaching. Marianna's work draws from the theory of narratology, metaphor theory, the new materialist thinking and feminist studies and develops audio-visual storytelling methodologies for research and teaching. 

Artist and Scholar

Clea T. Waite, PhD from Los Angeles, US,  is an internationally exhibited intermedia artist, scholar, engineer, and experimental filmmaker investigating the material poetics emerging at the intersection of art, science, and technology. She is a pioneer artist of immersive, cinematic works engaging embodied perception, dynamic composition, and sensual interfaces – as well as one inter-species collaboration with several hundred tropical spiders. Her multidisciplinary practice is modeled on the experimental laboratory, combining research, art-making, and scientific collaborations. Project themes examine climate change, water ecology, astronomy, particle physics, feminism, and popular culture. Waite brings a unique blend of expertise to her projects from which cross-disciplinary synergies emerge.  Waite received her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in Media Arts + Practice, and Bachelor and Master’s degrees in physics and computer graphics from the MIT Media Lab. Recent exhibitions include: The National Arts Club in NYC, Ars Electronica Barcelona, CODAME San Francisco, the Open Sky Project Hong Kong, the Miraikan National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation Tokyo, and the Boston CyberArts Festival. Awards include the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative, the IBM Innovation Prize for Artistic Creation in Art and Technology, and the Medienboard Berlin/Brandenburg.

MA Student of Management and Quality – Jagiellonian University, Krakow

I am a graduate of the Interfaculty Individual Studies in Humanities at the Jagiellonian University (MA in Management and Quality) and the Culture and Media Management Studies at the JU Institute of Culture. I am currently preparing my dissertation under the “Society of the Future” program at JU Doctoral School in the Social Sciences. My research focuses on the interdisciplinary issues of climate change adaptation and the broadening the discourse of the social sciences towards posthumanist perspectives. At the moment, I am conducting research on urban management in the face of a hyperobject - climate catastrophe. I am a member of the international Humanistic Management Network and the Climate Council of the Jagiellonian University. I am also active art critic and futurological journalist; in the past I was professionally engaged in the visual arts industry. The research projects I have been involved in address the adaptation of management to the challenges of today: whether in the context of climate change or supporting value-driven business. I have also had the opportunity to explore the subject of accessibility for people with disabilities and to be part of a team investigating core values in the self-identification of the academic community. Among my research interests are all of the above-mentioned themes: the social issues of climate change, resilient urban and university management, the philosophies of posthumanism and animal studies. I like cats and green tea.