Bureau Belsito

Cultural Projectbureau – Wool School + Gonfalone Festival

Another role, next to the House of Schools, is of a cultural projectbureau. Currently the focus lies on the further development of the so called Wool School and its workshops. This school is an outcome of our fascination for materials and of so called waste-wool in particular. Bruin, is the official name of our waste-wool project. Bruin is also the starting point of the Wool School, which is of course part of the House of Schools. The name Bruin refers to a natural color of the waste wool we are using and Bruin was able to team up with a new network of collaborators, amongst others a Dutch museum and a Dutch knitwear producer. And now this has become a separate project called Garen met Geheugen or Yarn with a Memory aand it is financially supported by the RVO in The Netherlands. This collaborative project has firstly realized a new ecological yarn, thanks to the design-office, called Ministry of Knits. This yarn will not only be out of Dutch Merino which is recycled from industrial waste, it will form the basis as well for a newly designed sweater by partner in ‘a crime called waste-wool’ and friend Alexander van Slobbe. This so called ‘Dutch’ sweater - the name will be clarified when you see the actual woolen sweater - becomes available in several shops and on-line from 2026 onwards.

This will mean that Bruin is able to hold on to the idea of promoting and reflecting on a variety of projects, all making use of waste wool, while our more entrepreneurial ambitions with knitwear are delegated to this network of collaborators. Sadly Bruin, due to our networks, is for the moment predominantly based in The Netherlands, except for the workshops (which are part of the Wool School in Arpino) operating under the guidance of Alexander van Slobbe and Anne-Marie Splinter.

Another activity of this cultural projectbureau is the development of a new festival, starting either in August of September of 2026 and dedicated to food and music and in collaboration with artist Martin Butler. Mister Butler seems everywhere, but he is based in Berlin and we are very happy that he dedicates part of his time to House Belsito. and this new festival.

Driven as mister Butler is, he would like to fill a whole day with music and food, but we decided to focus on the evening. And so, we are now busy approaching all kinds of local and international heroes in order to find out if they are willing to collaborate and become part of this new festival Great news is that several, local partners were already found as contributors like Maria Mastroianni and Camilla Linnaks-Passani while for the music part we will team up with the Museo della Liuteria di Arpino.

We believe that the marriage between House Belsito and this yearly festival can lead to both an interesting program and an interesting audience. Let us see if there are for instance any foundations willing to support this rather unique collaboration between a recently developed cultural organization and an ancient city. You will hear more about these developments!