News

Since events are evolving rapidly around the globe, here is a newsletter with some updates on our activities at the Siena Art Institute and the Siena School for Liberal Arts. As our digital initiatives continue we are also beginning to resume in-person activities amidst the gradual re-opening following Italy's coronavirus lockdown, and we are looking ahead to our Fall 2020 semester.  

Digital Spring Exhibit Online

Be sure to check out our students' online Spring 2020 exhibition at www.sienaart.blog with highlights of our students' work through our Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook channels.  Despite obstacles amidst these tumultuous times, our Spring 2020 students rose to the challenge demonstrating true creativity and tenacity, creating projects that offer a glimpse into their individual experiences. The young artists and students of the Siena Art Institute and the Siena School for Liberal Arts were the correspondents of our first online exhibition launch broadcast through Facebook live, celebrating the projects they created during the spring semester. 

Lockdown Lifted 

Thankfully our Province of Siena has been spared the grave impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic which heavily hit other areas of the country. Nation-wide, Italy has been increasingly successful in controlling the spread of Covid-19, and with the success in "flattening the curve" the national authorities have already begun the process of gradual re-opening: museums, parks, libraries, churches, stores, salons, and restaurants are now open to the public while continuing to carefully abide by social distancing guidelines such as the use of masks and maintaining a 1 meter distance in public spaces. On June 3rd the internal EU borders are scheduled to reopen followed by the expected opening of external borders during the summer. We continue to closely monitor the situation following the guidance of our local and national authorities.  At the Siena Art Institute we are not currently organizing large public events but we are beginning summer activities for small groups within our local community such as sustainable gardening and summer arts activities for children. 

Our Fall 2020 semester is scheduled to begin with in-person class meetings in September.  We have already confirmed the participation of European participants (for example offering special scholarship programs for students coming from top university art programs in Greece and Eastern Europe) and we welcome the participation of other international students as well.

Fall 2020 semester: Extended Deadline & Compressed Calendar

We are still accepting applications for our Fall 2020 semester at the Siena Art Institute and our partner program the Siena School for Liberal Arts. 

The deadline for undergraduate and post-baccalaureate students to apply for our Fall 2020 semester has been extended to July 15, as we understand it is necessary for prospective students to wait to confirm their participation until travel bans are officially lifted. 

Due to uncertainties for international travel amidst the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, we have slightly compressed the calendar of our Fall 2020 semester, maintaining the same instructional hours and credits earned as in our regular semester schedule.  The Fall 2020 semester will begin with 1 week of an online Intro Unit followed by 89 days of intensive on-site activities in Siena.

As students will thus stay in Italy for less than 90 days, it will not be necessary for American students to request a study visa (which is only required for stays in Italy of more than 90 days).  Students of other nationalities should confirm with the Italian embassy in their home country to confirm their visa requirements. Click here for more info.

Calendar details can be found at the following pages: 

• Undergraduate Semester Calendar
• Post-baccalaureate Semester Calendar

For more information about our semester courses and our online application process please write us at info@sienaart.org. 

StARTers Live: Digital Artists' Talks through June 5

How can we be creative during this global pandemic? We are exploring this topic through our ongoing series of online talks with renowned writers, architects, designers, artisans, and visual artists from all over the world: StARTers LIVE, our online series of artists' talks on Tuesdays and Fridays at 5:30pm in Siena (use this time zone converter to determine the time in your location).  Join us at FACEBOOK.COM/SIENAART and you can see the recordings of this season's broadcasts saved in our Facebook video archive and on our website's news page.

Our presenter on Friday May 29, will be American film-maker Julie Wyman, who was an artist-in-residence at the Siena Art Institute in the fall of 2019. We hope you can join us for our discussion of her work! 

The other presenters in our StARTers LIVE broadcasts are artists from around the world well-known in Siena, who have demonstrated their affection for Siena through their participation:  Madyha J. Leghari, Laura Marsh, Carlos Estévez, Susan Barbour, Gabriel Feld, Nicoletta di Gaetano, Lisa Corinne Davis,  Alexandros Georgiou, Magdalena Maslerz, Neil Goldberg, and Mikayel Ohanjanyan.  Find more information about this ongoing series on our news page.

EU Project: CErTiFY 

The Siena Art Institute is a partner in CErTiFY (Crisis and Employment: Tools and methodologies for Your Future) an innovative project promoted by the Loughborough University in partnership with Atit Bvba (Belgium), De Montfort University (UK), Spes GMBH (Austria), Istituto Luigi Sturzo (Italy), Research Paths Etaireia Ereynas (Greece) and VSL "Lyderystes ir verslo akademija" (Lithuania). The CErTiFY project, funded by the European Erasmus+ Program, seeks to help individuals wanting to work in the cultural and creative sectors, that are characterized by less-structured recruitment processes and key competences often acquired over longer periods of time and outside the formal education system. As such, finding a way to recognize these skills becomes a compelling necessity for candidates. CErTiFY will develop and test two digital tools: a smartphone app to create digital "curricular" stories and an e-learning platform to support and guide job-seekers in applying for jobs. For more info click here and visit CErTiFY's YouTube Channel.

Sustainability Initiatives

A small group of our collaborators at the Siena Art Institute & Siena School for Liberal Arts joined Bernardo Giorgi this week to learn more about the expansion he is leading of the sustainable garden alongside our building and worked together to plant seeds in partnership with the Seed Vicious association producing and saving a wide variety of seeds. Visit our Sustainability track for more info on our related coursework, including research and experiential learning! 

Friends of SART

As a non-profit organization, the Siena Art Institute appreciates the support of our program partners and sponsors in making it possible for us to continue in our mission to encourage creativity, ingenuity and resourcefulness as active tools that can have a practical and meaningful impact on society, combining high-level training with many opportunities for dialogue with the most interesting voices of the international art scene.

We welcome the support of individual donors as "Friends of SART."