Utopia Fest 2019 is the Landscape Festival that celebrates the places of Agrigento where nature is intertwined with history generating lasting beauty and it will take place in Agrigento from 4th to 8th September 2019. This is the first edition of a festival organized by A.P.S. On-Off that wants to regenerate and revitalize the city of Agrigento through public art: street art, land art and sculpture. An annual event that, edition after edition, aims to spread beauty, stimulate creativity, support a process of re-appropriation of city locations through culture and art. The goals are to bring closer to the Valley of the Temples the city and to reconfer centrality to Agrigento historic center. It will do it through several cultural and entertainment activities.

Utopia Fest 2019 starts (the events program of festival is at the bottom of the page) from a research path in the field of the best public art, with the aim of offering the city a complete panorama of the latest street art productions and its most interesting representatives. 3 street art artists for 3 walls, 2 land artists and 2 sculptors, extemporaneous artistic performances, together with a full program of collateral events such as the conference about urban regeneration and cultural heritage, electronic music dj sets and enogastronomic itineraries, workshops and collective performances.For this edition the artists involved for the residence of art selected following a public call are: for the street art section, Luogo Comune, Setter and Andrea Di Pas, for the Land Art section, Livia Paola Di Chiara and Alessia Taurchini and for the Sculpture section the artists Lorenzo Conti and Pasquale Maria Petrone. To these is also added Un * Salta, a collective of young artists interested in the relationships between art, culture and technology.

Every day from 4 to 8 September, from morning to evening, the yards will be active in the creation of works of street art, land art and sculpture in various places in the city of Agrigento (Via Manzoni 203, Via Europa, Via Foderà, Entrance Rabato district).

On September 5 from 9.30 a.m. in collaboration with the Order of Architects of the Province of Agrigento, at Spazio Temenos – Church of San Pietro there will be a conference entitled “Landscape and cultural heritage. For sustainable tourism and local economy development”. The conference will bring together significant institutional representation in dialogue with national best practices. The focus is on the theme of the regeneration of places, which goes far beyond the concept of re-functioning of structures and buildings, encouraging social and cultural processes capable of bringing new energies to the cities. Different paths of social inclusion and cultural innovation will be reviewed, imagining new models of regeneration of places, spaces, neighbourhoods, able to re-enact past, contemporary and future.

The evenings will be animated by two concerts (OceanoMare – San Leone), cineforum appointments at the new headquarters of the Pegaso University (via Atenea n.15-19) and by workshops and group performances between the Social Street district of via Foderà, Piazzetta Ficani and Piazza Don Minzoni (Cathedral).

The Cathedral Square will be the perfect setting for the “Kite Concert” (Friday 6th and Saturday 7th) where a performative land art work will be created through the kite game, where the visual impact will be given by the multitude of piloted kites by anyone. The only testimony will be the participants who will spend hours idling by flying kites and creating a convivial situation, where the aim is to know each other and disinterested play.

On this occasion, thanks to the Ecclesia Viva Association, the Cathedral of San Gerlando (Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th) and Museo Diocesano as well as the Church of Santa Maria dei Greci (Sunday 8th) will be open to visitors from 9.30 p.m. showing their treasures to those who want to dedicate the evening hours to a visit.

In Piazza Don Minzoni the evenings of 6^th Sep. (Alessandro Gueli), 7^th (Santo) and 8^th (Daniele La Duca) there will be live dj sets with the selectors of the territory who are creating a high-profile electronic scene in Sicily. In the Cathedral square there will be the stand of Birra Forst and enogastronomic itineraries in collaboration with Box Office Agrigento.

On Sunday evening (10.00 p.m.) “The walk in the historic center” is a moment for the re-appropriation of the spaces of the ancient city through the tools of urban and territorial exploration.

The event is organized by A.P.S. On-Off in collaboration with Comune di Agrigento, Agrigento 2020 and Arcidiocesi di Agrigento and various local players without which Utopia Fest would not have been possible. Utopia Fest is the brainchild of Andrea Tripaldi, president of A.P.S. On-Off and Artistic Director of the Festival, a supporter of contemporary art as an element of cultural dynamism and a strategy of socio-economic, cultural and tourist growth and of Daniela Avanzato, event coordinator, from Agrigento and passionate about art, landscape and enhancement of historical-artistic centers.

Utopia is the festival of dreamers, of those who believe and actively participate in the construction of a city starting from the places, its people, their needs. Hence the name “Utopia”, because every city needs to dream and see realized his desires for beauty.

• FULL FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

WEDNESDAY 4^TH SEPTEMBER

09.30 | SITES OPENING OF STREET ART, LAND ART AND SCULPTURE

Via Manzoni 203 – Viale Europa – Entrance to the Rabato District – Social Street Via Foderà and other locations in the city

07.30 p.m.  | LA FAMIGLIA FANG – Cineforum

Quartiere Social Street Via Foderà – P.zza Lo Presti

09.30 p.m. | CLOUDWATCHERS (Ambient trio)

Social Street district Via Foderà

Cloudwatchers is a project formed in 2017, we offer largely improvised music based on simple canvases and without pre-established structures. The duo is formed by Alessandro Gambato on electro-acoustic synths and instruments, from Tiziano Pastor to electric guitar and Federico Poni to CGI.

10.00 p.m. | KEPLER PH2 – Live music

OceanoMare – San Leone

THURSDAY 5^TH SEPTEMBER

09.30 a.m. | SITES OPENING OF STREET ART, LAND ART AND SCULPTURE

Via Manzoni 203 – Viale Europa – Entrance to the Rabato District – Social Street Via Foderà and other locations in the city

09.30 a.m.- 07.00 p.m. | LANDSCAPE AND CULTURAL HERITAGE. FOR SUSTAINABLE TOURISM AND LOCAL ECONOMY DEVELOPMENT – Conference

Spazio Temenos

The conference aims to promote the managerial skills of graduates in the humanities, graduates from the academies of fine arts, professionals and entrepreneurs in the sector of cultural and creative enterprises, employees of public bodies and organizations in the sector of cultural assets and activities.

10.00 a.m.| 06.00 p.m. OBJET SONOR – Workshop

Università Pegaso

Workshop with active participation from the public through the construction of simple electro-acoustic instruments. The most significant epochs for contemporary and electro-acoustic music and the main exponents will be analyzed, before moving on to the construction of simple electro-acoustic instruments, which can be designed starting from any object. We will analyze some famous examples of contemporary scores (random) and then proceed with the explanation of “Teaching Process”, a piece written ad hoc for the workshop.

09.30 p.m. | OBJET SONOR – Collective Performance

Social Street district Via Foderà – Piazzetta Ficani

The workshop will take a more technical turn with the explanation of the concept of DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and its use, immediately put into practice with the recording of the final performance, in which the groups of volunteers will be the performers themselves.

10.00 p.m. | ZERO GRAVITY – Concert

OceanoMare – San Leone

FRIDAY 6^th SEPTEMBER

09.30 a.m. | SITES OPENING OF STREET ART, LAND ART AND SCULPTURE

Via Manzoni 203 – Viale Europa – Entrance to the Rabato District – Social Street Via Foderà and other locations in the city

05.00 p.m. | KOUBANAO PROCESS – Collective performance

Social Street district Via Foderà – Piazzetta Ficani

Performance / workshop focused on the project prepared for Koubanao (Senegal) in which through simple preparatory lessons on the use of the instruments, designed ad-hoc for the performance, we arrive at the execution of a piece of improvisational nature for which it is not necessary (but indeed not recommended) a previous musical preparation. The only prerequisite for participating in the workshop / performance is owning an Android phone, with a fairly recent version and a working speaker.

06.30 p.m. | LA PROFEZIA DELL’ARMADILLO – Cineforum

Università Pegaso

07.30 p.m. | KITE CONCERT – Workshop + collective performance

Piazza Don Minzoni and internal courtyard of the Seminar

Through the game of kite, a performative land art work will be created, where the visual impact will be given by the multitude of kites driven by anyone. It will therefore be a work of ephemeral land art, where the only testimony will be the participants who will spend hours lazing around making flying kites creating a convivial situation, where the purpose is to get to know each other, is disinterested play.

08.30 p.m. | DJ SET UNDER THE CATHEDRAL WITH ENOGASTRONOMIC ITINERARIES

DJ Alessandro Gueli

Piazza Don Minzoni

SATURDAY 7^th SEPTEMBER

09.30 a.m. | SITES OPENING OF STREET ART, LAND ART AND SCULPTURE

Via Manzoni 203 – Viale Europa – Entrance to the Rabato District – Social Street Via Foderà and other locations in the city

06.30 p.m. | KITE CONCERT – Workshop + collective performance

Piazza Don Minzoni and seminary internal courtyard

Through the game of kite, a performative land art work will be created, where the visual impact will be given by the multitude of kites driven by anyone. It will therefore be a work of ephemeral land art, where the only testimony will be the participants who will spend hours lazing around making flying kites creating a convivial situation, where the purpose is to get to know each other, is disinterested play.

08.00 p.m. | IPERTOLLI – Collective performance

Social Street district Via Foderà – P.zza Lo Presti

Using the toll as an hyperschem, we can tackle and explore a problem from within, forced to confront it with the realities we are dealing with. We can talk about landslides at risk of landslides, we can speak of collapse at risk of collapse. We live in a condition.

08.30 p.m. | DJ SET UNDER THE CATHEDRAL WITH ENOGASTRONOMIC ITINERARIES

DJ Santo

Piazza Don Minzoni and Cathedral square

09.30 p.m. | THE TREASURES OF AGRIGENTO – Evening openings

Cathedral

SUNDAY 8^th SEPTEMBER

09.30 a.m. | SITES OPENING OF STREET ART, LAND ART AND SCULPTURE

Via Manzoni 203 – Viale Europa – Entrance to the Rabato District – Social Street Via Foderà and other locations in the city

08:00 p.m. | WALK – Performance

Piazza Pirandello and various locations

Through performative research, UN * SALTA creates urban and territorial exploration tools. The result of the interventions is the re-signification of the basic elements of the topography: the border, the road, the area, the neighborhood, the inhabited space. The walk is a time open to participation and wants to be an act of re-appropriation of the meanings that go beyond the divertissement.

08.30 p.m. | DJ SET UNDER THE CATHEDRAL WITH ENOGASTRONOMIC ITINERARIES

DJ La Duca

Piazza Don Minzoni

09.30 p.m. | THE TREASURES OF AGRIGENTO – Evening openings

Cathedral – Museo Diocesano – Santa Maria Antiquarium