“Oh, my Earth!”: this is the theme of the RUFA Contest which, as usual for five years, invites the students of the Academy of Fine Arts legally recognized by the Miur, to confront each other in the sign of creativity to decline ideation, ingenuity and research.
“I am your gem,
I was born from your daughter.
I breathe you, I drink you, I eat you.
By touching you, I learn to recognize myself.
Irreplaceable, inspiring muse, cradle of evolution.
You make me feel like a guest. You make me feel part of it.
I’m free with you,
by you I vibrate with emotion
and I can forget you, Mother.
So infinite and unrepeatable, Earth.”
This is the literal synthesis that the artistic director of RUFA Contest, Emanuele Cappelli, has defined for the 2020 edition. The theme aims to express a return to the origins. “We all have the same Mother,” explains Emanuele Cappelli, “human, animal and vegetable. We are living matter of a single ecosystem, the Earth, the supreme source of our evolution.
The history of humankind, its research, have always been animated within this complete, organic, perfect system, but in its extremely simple pivotal principle. A system of which we are a link to the future. Nature, supreme inspiration for art and engineering, has made us desire its emulation and so, guided by our emotions and moods, we have reproduced shapes, colours, films, written words, evoked sounds. But if on the one hand the work or project tries to replicate what already exists, on the other hand they are an indispensable testimony that projects humans towards understanding, evolution.
Academic education aims to provide an answer to be an active part of the universal theme of Mother Earth. A response/project as powerful as an aurora borealis or as light as the beating of a butterfly’s wings.”
An exploration into contemporaneity that began with Stefan Sagmeister in 2015 and continued with Karim Rashid in 2016, Francis Kéré in 2017, Shirin Neshat in 2018 and, in 2019, with the iconic David LaChapelle. RUFA Contest is a project that includes didactics, laboratory activities, research, experimentation, but above all ideas and expectations of every single student who participates in it.
It is possible to participate in RUFA Contest individually or as a working group, consisting of a maximum of 5 components. In this case it is mandatory to indicate a group leader. It is possible to freely choose the techniques for the realization of your project and how to present the work, referring to what is expressed in the call for proposals.
Registration takes place exclusively in digital mode, from February 24th through the dedicated platform “contest.unirufa.it” through which it will be possible to upload the project. The deadline for submission of the March 22nd has been postponed to April 10th. A special internal committee will make a first selection by April 24th. The selected concepts must be developed and uploaded to the platform, accompanied by a technical sheet in Italian and English, by 30 April 2020, following the instructions on the platform. The 25 experiences admitted to the final will be announced on May 8th.
The winner of RUFA Contest will be awarded a cash prize of 2,500.00 euro, in addition to a ticket for one person.
