Artist Andreoletti Tea

Exploring the union of mountain municipalities by poverty and orality, and expanding the concepts of leadership and socially engaged artistic practice

Taiteellinen työ / siihen pohjautuva työ | Kaksivuotinen

In 2026 I will run for mayor as an artist in the municipal elections of my home village, Gromo, in the Alps of northern Italy. I approach the candidacy with a curatorial project that will perform alternative leadership and enact possible futures for the mountain villages of my valley. In particular, the project focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of the proposal to create a union between Gromo and the neighbouring villages to deal with economic issues. The artistic proposal for the candidacy is curated into 4 phases: 1) Resume the positive Franciscan concept of "Povertà" (poverty) to approach the idea of leadership. The project's structure is based on Leadership Povera, which means modest, welcoming, vulnerable, amateurish and made up of a multicultural and multidisciplinary collection of poor leaders. It wants to provide a model that can be applied to different leadership positions. 2) Create a network between Finland, Italy, and across Europe, to approach the local issues of Gromo’s union through a transnational gaze of other villages’ union experiences. Interviews with mayors, encounters and discussions with the inhabitants. 3) Use a series of performances and orality as a tool to explore and document the topic of the union of municipalities. In a podcast format composed live and a participatory performance format, the performances will explore big internationally shared questions about "union" (macro-level) through the reality of a small village in Italy (micro-level). 4) Propose an expanded alternative to the local administrative model of 1 mayor and 9 councillors. Encourage the formation of a councillors network made up of 10 people from Gromo and 10 international. Work with the councillors group on the electoral proposal with different points of view and a union of a plurality of voices. The project is part of broader artistic research that blurs the boundaries between art and life.