We invite you to a meeting with artist Giacomo Zaganelli, who will be staying at the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb from 29 September to 26 October as part of the international artistic residency Museum of the Commons and the Točka sastajanja programme.
The meeting, taking place on Friday, 2 October 2026 at 6 pm at MSU Zagreb, will be an opportunity to meet the artist and learn more about his work, but also for us, as local residents, to introduce him to the place where he will be researching and working over the coming weeks.
Zaganelli was selected through an international open call that received more than 200 applications, with his proposal responding particularly well to the theme and task of the residency: exploring the area around the Museum and Novi Zagreb, its social, spatial and ecological resources, and the relationships that already exist within this environment.
In his artistic practice, Zaganelli often starts from a specific place, its inhabitants and the resources already present there. In Fluire, presented in 2019 as part of the Setouchi Triennale on the Japanese island of Shodoshima, he worked with the local community to transform a school swimming pool that had been abandoned for 15 years into a community garden, using elements connected to local somen production and water as an important part of community life.
He continued a similar process in Tsuyama, where in 2023 People, Art and Territory opened a cultural centre to different forms of participation – from workshops and walks to communal lunches and encounters with local residents and cultural actors. The following year, he created Tsuyama Ping Pong Platz, a permanent public space transforming an abandoned plot of land into a place for gathering and play, with the involvement of local companies and the use of local materials.
But his work can also take the form of a brief and unexpected intervention in everyday space. For Non a tutti piace l’erba in Florence in 2008, Zaganelli covered 2,000 square metres of Piazza Ghiberti with grass overnight. The temporary intervention transformed an ordinary city square into an unexpected public event and raised questions about how art can change the way we see spaces we pass through every day.
In Zagreb, Zaganelli will focus particularly on the area surrounding the Museum and Novi Zagreb. His residency will develop through research, conversations, walks, encounters and possible temporary interventions.
The meeting is therefore an open invitation to anyone who would like to meet the artist, talk with him, share their experience of the neighbourhood and Zagreb, and help him get to know the place where he will be working. This is not a presentation of a finished work – Zaganelli is only beginning his research – but rather a first encounter and an entry point into the space in which the residency will unfold over the coming weeks.
The meeting will be held in English.
More about the artist and his work: www.giacomozaganelli.com
The meeting is organised as part of the international project Museum of the Commons, the L’Internationale network and the Točka sastajanja programme, with the financial support of the City of Zagreb, the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, and the Creative Europe programme.
