Local arts association Creative People in Florence isn’t just a Facebook group, it’s a force to be reckoned with. With their newly acquired Associazione Culturale status, the possibilities and partnerships will only continue to grow.
Sonja de Graaf for Creative People in Florence
Founded by jewelry designer Sara Amrhein and multimedia artist Anna Rose, this dynamic community of Italian and international artists grew out of an ad on Craigslist (remember those days?). In recent months, CPiF launched the Creative Collective, an exhibition space and arts hub in Sant’Ambrogio; participated in an Istituto Lorenzo de’ Medici video project spotlighting artisans for the Tuscan AngloAmerican Festival; and has reached more than 2,500 members in its Facebook group.
Amrhein and Rose explained that as the group has grown, so has interest from outside institutions. Becoming an official Associazione Culturale will help facilitate more formal collaborations and relationships. A key example of this is a new course at the British Institute of Florence, ‘Material Culture in Early Modern Italy,’ designed specifically for CPiF members based on feedback about their interests. Launching on March 21, the 15-session course will focus on how the applied arts helped shape Italian culture from the 13th to the 17th centuries. Sign up here.
The Creative Collective will also begin hosting a series of workshops run by group members from varied fields. Build your own terrarium with help from a floral designer; learn the basics of technical drawing; or re-invent a tattered T-shirt at an ‘embellishment lab.’ Visit their website to see more events as they are announced.
The group’s meetups and aperitivi, exhibitions and studio visits will remain open to all, but for official membership, creatives can pay an annual fee of 10 euro to join the cultural association. Members will receive discounts on workshops and other events, and Amrhein and Rose are also working with local businesses to develop exclusive members-only deals. Fees will support the day-to-day running of CPiF, and will help create opportunities for members to showcase their work, make contacts and launch new projects.
‘As always, the goal of Creative People in Florence is to promote the contemporary arts in Florence by fostering collaboration between artists, designers and creative thinkers,’ the founders commented. ‘Making things official will open up even more avenues to make it all happen.’
