Program
House Belsito is a cultural foundation and operates as an Associazione. Artists, students, makers and designers use it predominantly as a (physical) platform. Its self-initiated program has seen many contributors, amongst others Charly Bloedel and Roberta di Cosmo. They contributed to a possible concept for House Belsito. While Yeb Wiersma, an artist who lives both in Amsterdam and Arpino, engages in a continuous conversation about the potential of the program. And Lisette Smits, an independent curator/educator, is willing to share her critical perspective. We are confident the program will continue to focus on a ‘more than human’ perspective on ecology, the surrounding landscape and the vast heritage of both the landscape and the city of Arpino. The program will of course change, alter, transform. At the same time always bounded by Arpino itself; a city that used to be the wool centre of central Italy and wool has given vast riches to the human inhabitants of the city. Nowadays the surrounding landscape has changed from a grazing landscape for the sheep to olive plantations, while Arpino has almost forgoten its former wool culture. And sadly, climate change will have its unforeseen effects as well.
Ecology deals in other words with dynamic systems and through a ‘more then human’ lens we like to discuss the changes at hand, the risks and of course the new possibilities. Starting off with the story of wool and how it transformed from an animal’s coat into an economic commodity and nowadays even into waste, which is either dumped or burned.
In the month of May (2024) we started with our first series consisting of a workshop called 'How to transform waste-wool' under the guidance of designer Alexander van Slobbe and curator Guus Beumer, including a so called field expedition aiming to collectively (re)discover and bolster the cultural richness, biodiversity and dormant knowledge of the wider Arpino region. The latter under the guidance of Yeb Wiersma, an artist who lives and works both in Amsterdam and Arpino.
At the beginning of August (2024) we organized a so called food-event, celebrating all those great producers of the region. And as a wonderful surprise Maher Al Sabbagh added his cooking-talents and transformed their lovely goodies into a Mediterranean menu, sadly only for one weekend.
And on the 18th of September (2024) we were invited by Bureau Europa to present House Belsito. It is part of the Grand Tour events which is linking different initiatives on European locality. Participants in this program are Chateau du Fresne in Champeon/France, Rademacher de Vries at the ENCI in the Netherlands, Ornamenta in the Black Forest/Germany, and House Belsito in Arpino/Italy. Next to a dinner including the abstract references to a local landscape by Frank Bruggeman and the magical food of Maher Al Sabbagh, we organized a workshop, celebrating the forgotten qualities of so called 'waste-wool'. Alexander van Slobbe was kind enough to help realizing this analogy of House Belsito in Maastricht, The Netherlands and he had developed a variety of caps, either hand-knitted or making use of crochet, which formed the basis of this workshop. In order to give the participants a larger context about wool and especially the wool of historical, Dutch breeds, Cynthia Hathaway spoke during the start of the workshop about her practice as an activist designer and the reason why she initiated the so called Wool March, while Nathalie Comans of Ministry of Knits told all participants more about that special yarn she had developed out of waste-wool and alpaca fibers (that yarn which was also used during the workshop).
& for more updated information on House Belsito, please check Instagram, this website or our sporadic newsletters
Newsletter # 3 - 24 October 2025
Dear all, it has taken almost a full year before we came to the decision to write another newsletter about House Belsito. We are sorry, in fact, our sincere apologies, but we - Herman and Gustav - are no children of the digital age and we simply forgot to inform you all. There is - happily - also a good side: we have now more to write about.
The big news is that we, as in House Belsito, did become a so called Associazione, a structure that enables us to do what we want to but legally! This last year was tough: Italian bureaucracy, like all bureaucracies, has its particular characteristics, but now we have a legal body to work with. And we also have the right bank account and you are even insured when you decide to attend one of our events. Ridiculous, but this insurance does give us a feeling of safety. And memberships for the Associazione and therefore House Belsito are easy to obtain; the price for a membership of a year - a few Euro’s- is simply part of the entrance-fee.
However, you can imagine the hassle we had to go through from boards to taxes and statutes, before we were able to, etc.
Much more fun is that our ambition to become as House Belsito a so-called House of Schools, next to our fascination for wool, is becoming more and more real. Roberta di Cosmo and Charly Bloedel had told us years ago about how students need to become nomadic nowadays and that within these nomadic lives, they are also searching for a sense of place, for a moment of reflection and now thanks to the House of Schools, we are able to offer this.
Just to be disconnected for a short while in order to connect once more, has become a true longing, not only for ourselves, but also for a variety of students.
The House of Schools can even intensify that moment of being disconnected, thanks to a program which makes use of local knowledge. Would it not be great if places like for instance Arpino, saturated with often forgotten knowledge are able to come in contact with the talents of all those international students and be confronted with their creative energy?!
Recently the first master department called the ‘WERKPLAATS TYPOGRAFIE’, based in Amsterdam and Arnhem, has visited House Belsito and we tried to make sure their stay was memorable.
Best news for us is that they were interested to learn from Arpino as well, which coincides beautifully with our own ambitions.
But that is not all; recently a second master department of an art academy called MAPs of the Frank Mohr Institute at MINERVA Groningen has also made use of the House of Schools and learned as well from the city of Arpino. And therefore, stayed in House Belsito.
However, although extremely positive that these schools and their students have come to House Belsito and Arpino, the proof of the pudding lies in a continuous stream of schools visiting House Belsito. Fingers crossed!!
And there is another development, the artist Martin Butler has been approached by House Belsito to help developing an additional side-program for the famous Gonfalone of Arpino, starting from next year onwards. Driven as mister Butler is, he would like to fill a whole day with music and food. 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 additional day of the Gonfalone. Great news is that several, local partners were 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!
And there is still more news to share. Maybe you know, but 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 project is financially supported by the RVO in The Netherlands. This collaborative project will first lead to a new ecological yarn, developed by the Ministry of Knits. This yarn will not only be out of Dutch waste-wool, it will also form the basis 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 next year 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 will be delegated to this network of collaborators.
We hope a) you will enjoy this news and we will - probably with some delays - keep you posted and b) that you will be able to help promote both House Belsito as a House for Schools and Bruin, our waste-wool project. Bruin, the wool platform is due to our networks currently based in The Netherlands, except for the workshops which will be part of the Wool School at House Belsito operating for the coming years under the guidance of Alexander van Slobbe and Anne-Marie Splinter.
House Belsito
A newsletter from House Belsito, nr II – 20 December 2024
‘It is not so much a question of what to do, but more of how to do it’.
These final months of 2024 seem to circle around the question ‘how to create a recognizable role for House Belsito as a cultural organization?’. We can of course realize an ‘one off’, but continuity demands a tougher form of commitment. And operating from a small historical town, away from the classic centers of attention is hardly an advantage. Especially when finance comes in the picture.
Could a cultural organization therefore offer an alternative option and disregard the ever so dominant ideas around visibility often based on display? These ideas seem so engrained in the role of a cultural organization, that there hardly seems a life for cultural organizations beyond that focus on visibility. And with it the longing for big audiences.
However, for House Belsito audiences will probably be relatively small in numbers and these will stay that way. In other words; being solely focused on visibility is simply not appropriate for House Belsito. Nor for any regional organization operating in other words outside a center, for that matter. It also means financing, in most cases based on attracting crowds, becomes even more complex. But if you take that regional context into consideration, then other formats of a cultural organization become important as well.
We found a possible answer for the program of the coming years hidden in a perspective on culture as a form of knowledge. If culture as knowledge is the central focus for House Belsito, then the ways of producing, of sharing, of strengthening the idea of culture as knowledge becomes key. House Belsito should therefore be seen as a starting point for almost any possible question and not as a final phase. And this perspective not only offers an alternative to for instance a program based on the notion of display but could also benefit the town of Arpino and result in a varied way of financing. And of course, next to incidental forms of sponsoring or public financing, House Belsito will need to initiate some, entrepreneurial activities, that could contribute to the costs of culture as knowledge.
Tough, yes indeed, but let us start, let us learn from our experiences and if necessary we alter our course.
We reflected as well on how to create a legal body for a possible varied series of activities. Advised by a group of lawyers, House Belsito will become a so called Associazione, making this variety of activities formally possibly thanks to for instance yearly memberships!
What shape will these activities take on in order to become also specific, recognizable and of course enjoyable??
The answer to this was funny enough already there, dormant, waiting to be discovered, lying in the physical conditions of a former hotel with bedrooms, a kitchen and spaces like a former restaurant. These hybrid conditions will probably lead to hybrid forms of programming. While operating within a region, without guaranteed means makes House Belsito dependent on the energy of others, of new friends and of former strangers. The program will therefore be inherently varied, consisting of a diverse mix of activities. However, in combination with these spatial conditions, we are sure that these strange combinations of activities will only become even more amplified and create specificity.
In order to communicate all that variation there is of course a need for a binding principle, for an identity. And after long and careful considerations we decided to embrace the idea of culture as knowledge and House Belsito as an experimental school for the region around Arpino; House Belsito will therefore become a House of Schools as well.
You can approach each of these so-called schools also as a program-line, but the idea of a school is more valid to us since, next to the diversity of activities so specific to a school, we like to emphasize continuity over actuality and we prefer to see how a line further develops through the seasons into what can be viewed as a ‘school’. And we are of course open to further develop these ideas with the help of others. Please do not hesitate to send in your ideas and we definitely take them seriously and we will respond.
Interestingly enough the first idea ever developed for House Belsito was a so called Nomadic or Itinerant School; a place to reflect on recent experiences for all those people whose lives are steeped in traveling but yearn for a place that offers the possibility to look back and reflect.
In the near future we will inform you more in detail about the schools which will be organized and about certain more entrepreneurial activities. We can already tell you that from May 2025 onwards we will set up the so-called Wool School, an outcome of an earlier workshop which was given by Alexander van Slobbe and Guus Beumer. Waste wool will take central stage once more since more awareness for the complexities surrounding wool, once key to the development of Arpino and its surrounding, is of fundamental importance. And a series of activities around the current food system will be organized introducing the idea of a Food School. However, the details are all for later. For now, House Belsito sends their best wishes for the coming year to all readers and of course lots of enjoyment during the coming festivities.
House Belsito/House of Schools
For friends and strangers