From January 31st to October 5th, 2026, at the MA*GA Museum in Gallarate (VA), the XXVIII Edition of the National Visual Arts Award City of Gallarate is held, titled Living Art. Performative and participatory processes as practice.

The exhibition presents the works of five artists – Allison Grimaldi Donahue, Francesco Fonassi, Francesca Grilli, Beatrice Marchi, Martina Rota – who express themselves through performative languages capable of involving words, the body, sound, and others. Practices that take on a procedural and relational dimension, questioning the boundaries of the work and the role of the audience itself.

The curatorial proposal by Eva Fabbris (director of Madre – Donnaregina Contemporary Art Museum in Naples), Lorenzo Balbi (director of MAMbo – Museum of Modern Art in Bologna), and Caterina Riva (director of MACTE – Museum of Contemporary Art in Termoli (CB), introduces dynamic artistic practices to MA*GA, contributing to the encounter between living and performative languages and the conventions of space and time inherent to the museum institution, with the intention of including them in the permanent collection.

The project is part of the Cultural Olympiad of Milan Cortina 2026, the multidisciplinary, plural, and widespread program that will animate Italy to promote Olympic values through culture, heritage, and sports, in view of the Olympic and Paralympic Games that Italy will host respectively from February 6th to 22nd and from March 6th to 15th, 2026.

The award reflects and includes some essential aspects of Olympic values, including respect and universality, promoting principles such as sustainability and accessibility by putting culture and the arts at the service of communities as much as sports.