Carrara Studi Aperti 2025: The Event

On Saturday, June 7 and Sunday, June 8, “Carrara Studi Aperti 2025” returns — the annual event that celebrates art as a tool for dialogue and cultural resistance, curated by the A.P.S. Oltre Association in collaboration with the Municipality of Carrara and the UNESCO Creative Cities network.

Starting at 5:00 PM, the city of Carrara will transform into a crossroads of creativity, culture, and social engagement: art studios, streets, and squares will become vibrant spaces of exchange and sharing, telling the story of the deep connection between art and society.

Throughout the two-day event, visitors will be able to explore the city and discover art studios, creative workshops, and meaningful places, guided by professional hosts. Over forty artists will open their studios to the public, sharing insights into their creative processes and the significance of the bond between art and territory. The experience will also include practical demonstrations and opportunities for interaction.

During the entire event, ateliers and exhibition spaces will be open for free visits, offering direct contact with those who live and breathe art every day. Even the shop windows in the city center will take on a new look: transformed into small temporary galleries, they will showcase selected works created especially for the event. This dialogue between the commercial and artistic worlds helps make art more accessible to everyone.

Among the event’s highlights, on Saturday starting at 9:30 PM in Piazza delle Erbe, the “Festa degli studi in piazza 2025” will take place. From 10:00 PM onwards, artistic performances, concerts, and book presentations will create an immersive atmosphere where visitors become part of the creative process.

The artists will not only open their spaces to the public but will also participate in a unique symbolic gesture: each participating studio will display a white banner, enriched with signs, illustrations, and words. This banner, which also bears the event's logo, will represent a visible commitment to rights, equality, and hope. Through this simple yet powerful gesture, Carrara’s art studios will unite in a collective dialogue, weaving together diverse thoughts and sensibilities into a powerful, shared narrative.

Carrara will thus become a witness to an artistic act that takes a stand, gives voice to the community, and envisions and builds a different world.

DOWNLOAD THE CARRARA STUDI APERTI 2025 MAP

The Official Visual Identity: A Story of Irony and Awareness

Carrara Studi Aperti 2025 presents itself with a fresh new visual identity — playful, yet deeply symbolic. The lead image of the event, created in a bold, cartoon style, lightly addresses urgent issues related to the region, art, and sustainability. At the center of the graphic, the marble quarries are depicted through an ironic personification of the city itself: a smiling face, the mountaintop cut off — a way to reflect on the overexploitation of natural resources and to remember that Carrara’s wealth in marble comes at a cost. Art, in this sense, becomes a lens to examine this fragility.

On the left, a figure holding a hammer — inspired by a sculpture in Piazza del Duomo and the FAC Studio (Fronte Acciaio Cromato, creators of the official artwork) — symbolizes the creative force of art, capable of shaping the world. The hammer is engraved with the word “ART,” highlighting that art can not only create but also transform reality.

On the right, the lion holding a pen in its mouth — a playful reinterpretation of the famous statue in Piazza Alberica — represents the other soul of art: one that speaks through words, ideas, and writing. A regal yet ironic figure, it escapes conventional frameworks and suggests freedom of thought.

The contrasts between man and lion, hammer and pen, mountain and sea reflect the very identity of Carrara: a city suspended between nature and culture, tradition and transformation.

The deliberately light, cartoon style aims to make art more accessible, engaging, and far from elitist.

With this visual, Carrara Studi Aperti 2025 affirms that art can be strong and light at the same time — capable of making us reflect with a smile, and of involving the community in a collective gesture of beauty and awareness.