Argomenti trattati
The 2026 edition of Orma transforms the hills of Piedmont into an extended exhibition: from May to November 2026 more than 60 municipalities across the Langhe, Roero and Monferrato will host installations, residencies and site-specific commissions. Conceived as a unifying platform, Orma gathers pre-existing local festivals and programs into a single six-month circuit that amplifies the relationship between contemporary art, landscape and community life.
Organizers present the project as both cultural programming and territorial strategy: the initiative feeds into the momentum leading up to Alba Capital of Contemporary Art 2027, while celebrating the tenth anniversary of the inscription of the Vineyard Landscapes of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato on the UNESCO list. Throughout the season visitors will find permanent interventions, temporary shows and multidisciplinary events that aim to make art part of everyday routes and public spaces.
What Orma is and how it works
Orma was born from the decision to link several independent programs into a single, long-form festival that travels across a UNESCO-recognized territory. The model combines residency practices, site-specific production and participatory actions to create artworks that remain embedded in local contexts. The goal is not only to bring national and international artists to the hills, but to create works that enter community life—installed in churches, towers, cellars and village squares—so that the territory itself becomes a diffuse museum.
New entries and major commissions
For 2026 several new communes join the circuit. Notably, Canelli—renowned for its underground cellars, often called the “subterranean cathedrals”—will host a major public commission by Maria Thereza Alves. Titled Garden of Pluriversal Recapturings, the project at the La Moncalvina site combines ecological landscaping and cultural programming in collaboration with ecoLogicStudio. The commission is supported by regional and national funds and will be inaugurated on 11 July 2026.
Two small hilltop villages, Neviglie and Roddino, expand the cross-border project Prospettive / Perspectives, curated by Tom Eccles and realized with partners such as Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and Villa Arson. In Roddino a new façade mural by Liam Gillick and Hito Steyerl—titled “However many times we ran the model the results were pretty much the same”—was unveiled on 22 April 2026, while Neviglie hosts Jean-Marie Appriou’s sculpture The Traveler on a panoramic belvedere.
Programs and festival highlights
Resté: staying with place
Resté—a project that takes its name from the Piedmontese word for “to stay”—returns as a strand of Orma focused on permanent interventions across several Langhe villages, including Diano d’Alba, Montelupo Albese, Rodello and Cerretto Langhe. Central to Resté are artist residencies that emphasize long-term ties between creators and communities; the project collaborates with institutions such as Farm Cultural Park and GART to produce works that will remain part of the landscape.
Prospettive / Perspectives
The cross-border platform addresses environmental change and landscape protection through contemporary practice. Curated actions in Roddino and Neviglie employ public art to bring topics like sustainability and memory into visible dialogue with everyday places, reinforcing the region’s UNESCO identity while testing new modes of rural cultural engagement.
Creativamente Roero and community residencies
Creativamente Roero stages its eighth edition with two launch dates, 16 and 24 May 2026, and residencies in Antignano, Castellinaldo d’Alba, Govone and San Martino Alfieri. Under the curatorship of Patrizia Rossello the program invites Italian and international artists—this year including Francesco Meloni, Saverio Todaro, Giuseppe Gavazza and Carlo Gloria—to work directly with local communities, producing site-specific pieces that enter the public realm.
La collina sale sempre: a summer solstice route
The festival La collina sale sempre unfolds between 20 June and 5 July 2026, with an opening weekend on 20–21 June across Castiglione Tinella, Mango and Neive. The itinerary moves through symbolic architectures—churches, towers, cellars and farm buildings—inviting thirteen artists from Italy and abroad to respond to the theme of transformation. The Torre di Barbaresco hosts the exhibition Orizzonti futuri from 26 June 2026, and the program includes the Castagnole delle Lanze residency week from 27 June to 5 July. A permanent public mural, Cambiante by Ernesto Morales, is inaugurated on 28 June 2026.
Germinale – Monferrato Art Fest
Running from 10 September to 4 October 2026, Germinale occupies the Basso Monferrato across 17 communes and gathers roughly fifty artists around the curatorial theme “Di marne feconde, un mare.” The festival mines the idea of subsoil as archive, pairing geological and historical readings with new commissions. The program includes ten residencies, the Selva Art Prize for under-40 artists, and the ongoing build-out of a Museo Diffuso through permanent works in Villadeati and Rinco (Montiglio Monferrato).
Across these strands, Orma 2026 functions as both a cultural season and a territorial experiment: it invites visitors to travel the hills, discover permanent and temporary works, and witness how contemporary art can become an integral element of rural life and heritage.