Identity, resistance, body, and gender are among the urgent themes explored by 200 IED students who, in dialogue with nine guest artists, were invited to generate ideas and take a stand.
200 Young Creatives Answer the Call for the 18th Edition of IED Factory
Date
02 March 2026
IED Factory is an annual program of interdisciplinary workshops dedicated to experimentation and collective research through the arts. Each year it invites internationally renowned artists to lead an intensive week of workshops for second-year students, creating a space for exchange, practice, and critical reflection.
The 2026 edition, titled Chiamata alle arti – stories that matter, was born from the urgency of consciously inhabiting a complex and contradictory present marked by the acceleration of information, the climate crisis, global conflicts, political instability, and the growing presence of artificial intelligence.
In this context, taking a position becomes a necessary act.
Over the course of the week, students worked alongside nine artists from different disciplines, shaping visions, questions, and narratives that reflect a generation willing to step forward and make its voice heard. Themes such as identity, resistance, relationships, gender, and speed became starting points for exploring responsibility, attention, and critical imagination.
The program culminated on February 27 with a public exhibition presenting the outcomes of the workshops and reaffirming design as an active practice of responsibility—capable of connecting languages, bodies, technologies, and identities, and transforming the complexity of the present into possibilities for action.
Among the workshops, choreographer Alessia Gatta explored the body as a space of tension and revelation; Gianvito Fanelli (Vitalenta) and Stefano Guglielmi (Passo Passo) invited students to experiment with slowness as an act of resistance through analog exercises; Karma B, Italy’s best-known drag queen duo, guided participants in the creation of a mockumentary reflecting on gender identity and media stereotypes. Other workshops investigated desire and creativity with art historian Benedetta Di Loreto, imagined new forms of “post-human spirituality” with artist Tommaso Fagioli, and explored the urban newsstand as a micro-architecture of resistance in contemporary Rome with science communicator Elisabetta Roncati. Additional projects examined identity through portraiture with curator Federica Patti, intimacy and sound with artist Matteo Nasini, and transformation at the intersection of nature and technology with the creative studio Ipologica.
“For five days, 200 creatives guided by nine remarkable artists worked with intensity, allowing themselves to be carried by the wonder of research and exchange,” commented Viola Pantano, curator of the 18th edition of IED Factory. “They explored different and sometimes opposing visions, trying to divert the algorithm toward thought rather than trends—keeping their gaze firmly on reality and on the responsibility of interpreting it.”
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