The ZACentrale project aims to transform the ZAC – Zisa Arti Contemporanee into a real powerhouse and, at the same time, into a station from which journeys can start that are both departures and returns, welcomes and impulses. Far from being limited to the ZAC area alone, the programme envisages itineraries, relations and fusions between various parts of the city of Palermo: from the old buildings to the outlying suburbs, from workplaces to sports and socialising areas, without excluding the so-called marginal areas.
In the Fondazione Merz’s ZACentrale project, great organisational commitment is combined with a profound cultural radicalism: alongside a full programme of exhibitions, concerts, theatre and dance performances, there are training activities at a variety of levels, public meetings in partnership with the other Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa organisations, documentary projects, the creation of a creative incubator and the opening of a specialist library dedicated to contemporary art.
ZACentrale crowns a history of close relations between the Fondazione Merz and Sicily. No less than seventeen exhibitions, events and projects have involved the Fondazione in Palermo and Sicily from 2014 to 2019: visual art programmes for the Festival delle Letterature Migranti (Festival of Migrant Literature), exhibitions in collaboration with Fondazione Sicilia and GAM Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Palermo, concerts – again with Fondazione Sicilia – and various types of collaboration with organisations such as the Museo Archeologico Regionale “Antonino Salinas” in Palermo, the University of Palermo, the Archdiocese of Palermo and Cantine Planeta. The Fondazione has also promoted and supported the birth of a new musical formation, the WadiEnsemble, set up to offer the best young Sicilian talents a new opportunity for growth and comparison with important figures in the international concert scene. With European Alternatives Fondazione Merz in 2019 organised ÜberMauer in Palermo, the second edition of BAM – Biennale Arcipelago Mediterraneo.
ZACentrale’s three-year programme is advised by a dedicated international scientific committee made up of: Suad Amiry, writer and architect, Manuel Borja-Villel, indipendent curator and former director of the Museo National Centro de Arte Reina Sofía Madrid, Caroline Bourgeois, curator of the Collection Pinault Paris, Giulia de Spuches, professor of cultural geography at the University of Palermo, Samuel Gross, curator in charge of exhibitions at MAH Genève, and Salvatore Tedesco, professor of aesthetics at the University of Palermo and coordinator of DAMS-Palermo.
Opening times: from Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm. Free admission
Free guided tours on Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 1.30 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
