Art Summit – Vesuvius Contemporary Experience and Residency

A contemporary art summit at the foot of Mount Vesuvius

Art Summit – Vesuvius Contemporary Experience and Residency is not your typical festival: it is a research and artistic production platform that calls the Borgo Casamale home—the 15th-century fortified core of Somma Vesuviana, in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Campania. Conceived by the Tramandars cultural association, the project invites artists, curators, and researchers each year to interpret the Somma-Vesuvius volcanic complex through contemporary practices, connecting the landscape, the memory of the sites, and the communities that inhabit them.

The association's name speaks volumes about its methodology: tramandare (to pass on) and ars (art), viewing art as both a legacy and an act of transmission. It is not about dropping artworks into a historic village from above, but rather activating a process of situated research, where the artists' work emerges from contact with the Vesuvius territory and returns to it in the form of exhibitions, installations, and encounters.

The fourth edition: two phases between May and August 2026

The 2026 edition, the fourth, is divided into two distinct phases. The first takes place from May 2 to 6, 2026, and is dedicated to exploring the landscape, archaeological sites, and contemporary art institutions of the Naples area. The second returns to Somma Vesuviana in early August 2026, coinciding with the Festa delle Lucerne (Festival of Lamps), the quadrennial event that illuminates the alleys of Casamale from August 3 to 5 with thousands of terracotta lamps arranged on wooden geometric structures.

This overlap is no coincidence: the folk festival becomes an immersion into the village's collective dynamics for the artists in residence, reinterpreted as a form of participatory performance. It is one of the project's most recognizable traits, having previously aligned its dates with the Festa della Montagna (Mountain Festival) and the collective ascent of Mount Somma on May 3.

2026 Artists, Curators, and Fellows

The 2026 program brings together resident artists, resident curators, and guest curators, supported by a group of fellows selected from the new generations of the Italian and international scene.

• Artists in residence: Django Burdaeu, Margherita Muriti, damp collective
• Resident curators: Dario Benvenuto and Massimiliano Maglione
• Guest curators: Vasco Forconi, Marta Ferrara, Giulia Pollicita
• Fellows: Anna Irina Russell, Niccolò De Napoli, Veronica Bisesti, Marta Perroni, Raimondo Coppola, Caterina Di Gaetano, Noemi Sparago, Gabriel Orlowski

The projects developed during the summit do not end when the event concludes: they are destined to take shape throughout the 2026-2027 biennium through exhibitions, workshops, installations, talks, and territorial activation practices, in dialogue with the landscape and local communities.

Borgo Casamale, the project's headquarters

The ancient heart of Somma Vesuviana, Casamale preserves its medieval layout with walls, narrow alleys, and courtyards: a context the project uses as a diffused exhibition space rather than just a backdrop. The public reference point is the Hub-Side on Via Campane, where the opening presentation is held, while Casa Tramandars hosts the artists during their residency periods.

The summit's program revolves around the repertoire of the Vesuvius area: the Pompeii Archaeological Park, the Villa Augustea of Somma Vesuviana, and contemporary art foundations and museums in Naples such as Fondazione Morra Greco, Casa Morra, Museo Nitsch, and Made in Cloister, as well as local foundries and artisan workshops.

Tramandars and the Vesuvius Biennale

Founded in 2017 and formally structured in 2020, the Tramandars association inaugurated Art Summit in 2023. From the 2025 edition, the project merged into the Vesuvius Biennale, a fluid and distributed cycle of actions, artistic practices, and activations that takes the Vesuvius territory—rather than just the center of Naples—as a generative site for contemporary research. The summit is realized with partners such as Collettivo Zero, Progetto Fiori, and Vesuvio Adventures, with the support of the Italian artist residency network.

Why follow it

For those interested in contemporary art, Art Summit is a rare opportunity to witness a creative process as it happens, in a context that is neither a fair nor a museum. For tourists arriving in Somma Vesuviana, it is the key to experiencing Casamale, the mountain, and its rituals through a different lens.