Palazzo Strozzi Foundation

Free Body is the Palazzo Strozzi project that combines works of art and dance dedicated to the inclusion of people with Parkinson. It is structured in cycles of free appointments open to all, where movement and gestures are conceived as interpretative and relational modes of expression. The meetings are conducted by museum educators, dance teachers who have followed the professional training course Teaching Course On Dance Well - Movement Research For Parkinson's Disease. Speech, movement and dance are ways to explore the space of the exhibition and the works exhibited in the rooms: paintings, sculptures, installations become the starting point of a physical and emotional journey during which participants are invited to observe, listen and listen to each other. The intent of the Free Body is to provide new stimuli to increase mental well-being and encourage the social participation of people with Parkinson, creating real dancing communities. At the end of each exhibition there is a public event which takes the form of a performance or collective action.
The project was born in 2018 thanks to the commitment of the Fresco Parkinson Institute of Florence and the Parkinson Center of Villa Margherita of Vicenza, international excellence for research and treatment on Parkinson and movement disorders and in collaboration with the Dance Well project promoted by CSC - Center for the Contemporary Scene of Bassano del Grappa.
The activities take place mainly in the rooms of Palazzo Strozzi but from 2020 remote initiatives have been activated on the occasion of the Tomás Saraceno exhibition.

With Many Voices is a project devoted to people living with dementia and their caregivers, which the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi first launched in 2011. For each exhibition, a series of meetings are organized for families and people living inresidential care homes, offering a pleasurable, stimulating and emotionally uplifting experience for sharing and seeking ways of communicating through the emotions triggered by works of art. The meetings are designed and conducted together by the museum educators of Palazzo Strozzi together with geriatric educators.
The main goals were to make exhibitions accessible to people living with dementia and people who care for them, focusing on each individual’s capability rather than on the deficiencies they have built up, and on the goal of “possible well-being” rather than on an (impossible) recovery of all their functions. The project also focuses on the ability to observe, to feel emotions, to imagine, all capabilities that are maintained for longer than their logical and cognitive counterparts. Other important aim is related to caregivers who are shown a new way of communicating. The project also sets out to prompt a change in society’s perception of this condition through encounters with the public in the exhibition, offering people with Alzheimer’s and their family members new opportunities for social relations and reducing the stigma attached to those experiencing this situation of fragility.
During the COvid-19 pandemic, through the project were activated a number of on-line modalities that allowed connection during the health crisis, an especially difficult moment for families having to cope with the stress of dementia.