Fondazione Prada intensifies and rethinks its digital presence in response to the temporary closure of the exhibition spaces, due to the current health emergency. Trying to transform a period of crisis into an opportunity for study and study, we experiment with new ways of operating and communicating. The question that moves us – What is a cultural institution for? – becomes a new challenge, in a context in which culture is not only useful and necessary, but must be experienced as something engaging and attractive for “remote” visitors. In the absence of a physical audience, it is essential to invent new languages ​​so as not to remain silent.
The website (www.fondazioneprada.org) and the social channels of the foundation (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo and Youtube) become a laboratory of ideas, an agile platform in which to test new formats and codes that can find further development in the future, as well as the current emergency.

With “Glossary” Fondazione Prada critically explores its archive. Through the list of some key concepts, a possible “glossary” of the foundation is set up to analyze its history and identity. Each item brings together multiple projects carried out from 1993 to today in the various areas of action: art, cinema, dance, music, architecture and philosophy. With the publication of archive images and videos, unpublished texts, extracts from catalogs and press comments, thematic itineraries and ideal dialogues are created between the various activities.

“Inner Views” replaces the physical visit of the three recently opened exhibitions, “The Porcelain Room”, “Storytelling” and “K”, with a virtual experience of learning and knowledge. Interviews, images, unpublished videos and focus on the exhibited works bring the public closer to the contents of the three projects from an internal, intimate and engaging perspective.

With “Outer Views” the foundation broadens its vision to what happens outside of its offices. In particular, it documents the scientific and exhibition contribution provided by important works of the Prada Collection on loan to international institutions and museums, on the occasion of collective and personal exhibitions, such as the recent retrospectives of Donald Judd, Richard Artschwager and Bruce Nauman. During the temporary closure of the spaces, the projects of the Cinema, the Children’s Academy and editorial activities resort to new ways of use and participation of our audience.

The “Perfect Failures” review, conceived by the Prada Foundation and MUBI, will be available from April 5 on the online streaming platform for auteur films. The project will be accompanied by a new section of the foundation’s website where unpublished materials, native content will be published that will reflect on the streaming experience, information on the selected films and curiosities about the directors, from Billy Wilder to Kelly Reichardt.

“Open Academy” is a video project with which the Children’s Academy traces the workshops conceived by “masters” (architects, pedagogues, artists, scientists, directors and musicians) over the past 5 years. The publication of materials, partly unpublished and systematized according to thematic paths, becomes an opportunity to rediscover the experimental and original nature of the Children’s Academy, the space of the foundation dedicated to childhood conceived in 2015 by the neuropediatra Giannetta Ottilia Latis, now curated by the neonatologist pediatrician Gabriele Ferraris.

“Readings” is a new editorial initiative which involves the creation of podcasts downloadable from a platform connected to the foundation’s website. The Italian public will be able to listen for free to the reading of texts extracted from the books published by the foundation from 2012 to today. “Readings” is a vast sound anthology, destined to grow, which includes more than 50 critical essays and narrative texts by authors such as Nicolas Bourriaud, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, Massimo Cacciari, Simon Castets, Germano Celant, Christoph Cox, Charles Esche, Emilio Gentile, Alison Gingeras, Jonathan Griffin, Boris Groys, Udo Kittelmann, Rachel Kuschner, Roxana Marcoci, Glenn Phillips, Salvatore Settis, Ali Smith and many others.

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