Amigdala / OvestLab

Amigdala is an artistic collective and a cultural association active in the fields of contemporary performing arts, urban recovery and social innovation in Modena, Italy. OvestLab is one of the dismissed workshops of the area of the Villaggio Artigiano in the west side of Modena, an area created in the mid-50s from an audacious political intuition during the socio-economical situation after the Second World War which represents the first model of craftsman’s area in Italy. Since 2017, Amigdala and Archivio Cesare Leonardi associations direct it in collaboration with Modena’s Municipality OvestLab project aims to be a connection between different artistic disciplines, artisan productions, urban regeneration and citizens involvement. It is a multicultural center where training activities, artistic production, civic experimentation, urban transformation and buildings’ heritage are interlinked, and activate new dynamics to increase the territorial quality of life.  Amigdala aims at creating permanent processes in the area, through artistic productions, creative residences, cultural calendars, publishing initiatives, training session, to foster new considerations on abandoned spaces – their role and their new possible identities. Re-activating a former mechanical workshop fully complies with Amigdala’s goals to interweave artistic experimentation with research and interventions on the city’s urban landscape.

What makes the organisation unique?

OvestLab is a territorial incubator seeking the enhancement of the neighbourhood where it is based. It does not work exclusively as a place for programming activities but it tries to work as a detonator of the cultural development of the area. We have a well established expertise is temporary reuse of abandoned building and we work with private proprietaries to open their dismissed buildings to artists and community for temporary reuses.

What TEH projects are you part of?

Italy Hub (Italian Network of Independent Cultural Centres).