AMBASSADOR

The ambassadors of the Arte Laguna Prize are the representatives of the competition’s activities in various countries around the world. They collaborate as enthusiasts and art lovers, sensitive and attentive to cultural exchanges, to the dissemination of opportunities for artists in order to enhance art and international culture.

Overall winner of Photographic Art at the 7th Arte Laguna Prize Richard Ansett is recognised for a relentless passion for the medium as a vital and present art form for the examination of self and society. His practice embraces all work that challenges what he considers the reductive narrative of conventional documentation. A mental health advocate, committed to person centred and gestalt practices and a Samaritan volunteer for 18 years supporting the most vulnerable in society, his work is deeply affected by an empathy founded in realism. He writes, curates, talks and mentors, collaborating in the production of new work that responds to the realities of peoples lives. He is a passionate defender of art as an essential medium offering a voice to the voiceless and recognising the enormous value of being seen and heard.

richardansett.com | richard@richardansett.com | IG: @richardansett

Founder of VZART Culture & Art Exchange Association and supporter of Italy-China cultural exchanges, he is also a forward-looking artist with a master’s degree in Visual and Performing Arts.

He is engaged in international and curatorial analysis and art exchanges. He has many years of successful experience in cooperation and partnership between universities, governments and international businesses, as well as in marketing and brand management. Excellent planning and organization skills, combined with leadership, interpersonal relationship management and negotiation skills have allowed him to become project manager, ambassador and consultant for various institutions in China, Italy and abroad, among these the Fujian General Chamber of Commerce in Italy, CASME – Investment Development Committee, Government of the Nanjing County of Fujian, DG2CI limited – analysis, consulting and communication company. For his experience and knowledge in the artistic field he was appointed Honorary Deputy Director of the Sunshine International Art Museum in Beijing.

Stefano.Yang@hotmail.com | ID WeChat: VZART-Yangside

Jad El Khoury – Lebanon

Born in Beirut 1988, 2 years before the end of a civil war that lasted 15 years, Jad El Khoury grew up surrounded by the traces of a conflict that was never solved. A city that is both physically and psychologically suffering, with no plans of recovery and a sectarian system that divided people and fed corruption, facts that filled him enough rage to make him act and be a catalyst in the healing process of his country.

His background in architecture and graffiti made him interested in occupying contemporary ruins, and abandoned buildings holders of bitter memories. Using local nostalgic architectural materials, he produces kinetic Installations animated by the wind.

Winner of the Arte Laguna Prize for the Urban Art and Land Art section 2019, and many art residencies around the world for his “tower of the wind” project. Today he is undertaking a master program in Art and public space at Oslo national academy of the arts.”

jadelkhoury@hotmail.com | IG: potatocurtains

Pietro Marullo – Belgium / Switzerland / France

Pietro Marullo is a “materiographer” and a connector of distant realities, he creates artistic projects and international cultural exchanges. His specializations are installations and performances, ranging from anthropology to philosophy, from technique to cognitive sciences. His projects are presented all over the world, in dance, theater, music festivals, museums and galleries. He has collaborated with the Kolkata Creative Center in India, the MART Museum in Italy, the Seoul International Dance Festival in South Korea, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the José Limon Dance Festival in Mexico, the Théâtre de la Ville de Paris, the Beijing Dance Festival in China, the International Dance Encounter Amman in Jordan. He is part of the international AEROWAVES network, of the Italy/Asia CROSSING THE SEA project and of the DANSE ÉLARGIE award. He is associated artist at Oriente Occidente Festival in Rovereto and at Les Halles de Schaerbeek in Brussels as well as at Arte Laguna Prize in Venice. His work investigates the current historical parable, and more generally, what are the cosmogonic engines of our species, and how human groups are shaped by them.

He created a reflection on “the usefulness” and “uselessness” of the Other-who-comes-from-afar (“ARANCE – avoid shooting blacks”), on the relationship between culture and violence (“WRECK – List of extinct specie”) and on the relationship between reality and technique (“DECAMERON NEOTENICO”).

pietromarullo.com/ | IG: @pietro.marullo | VIMEO: @pietromarullo