The Story Behind the Fontecchio International Airport

The Fontecchio International Airport - Center for Creative Residencies

The Fontecchio International Airport (center for creative residencies) is located in the medieval mountain village of Fontecchio (pop: 300), Abruzzo, in south-central Italy, two hours from Rome. The village has one bar, one restaurant, one butcher, one hairstylist, one small grocery market, one flower shop, one pharmacy, one post office, one church, and one funeral parlor… almost everything you need in life, except an ATM and a disco club.

Over recent years, Fontecchio has been home to an upswell of creative cultural life that is unusual for such a tiny village.  The Airport has served as a central protagonist and catalyst in this process of revitalization.  The project came about as a manner of exploring how the seeding of artistic communities might hold a unique capacity to assist in revitalizing and regenerating life in rural villages that struggle with declining populations (Italy is said to have nearly 3,000 villages that have been in population decline since the end of WWll).

Repopulation via Arts & Culture - Todd Thomas Brown

I was first invited to the region for the purpose of this work by Raffaello Fico, head of the Special Office of Reconstruction of the Crater Region (Usrc). I was introduced to hime by his sister, Lisa. Trained as an engineer, Fico relocated to L'Aquila from Napoli following the 2009 earthquake that devastated the capital city of L’Aquila and many of its surrounding municipalities. 10 years later, in 2019, I found myself in conversation with him, discussing projects that center on social and cultural revitalization. At that time, reconstruction was not even 50% complete. He described how, while the domain of his profession was that of physical reconstruction, he nevertheless felt profoundly concerned about a kind of post-earthquake depression (economic and psychic) that continued to pervade the region. He strongly wanted to identify possible ways of sparking a genuine resurgence of social and cultural life, even if just starting with one village that could serve as a potential model. Shortly thereafter, he introduced me to the very spirited and forward-thinking mayor of Fontecchio, Sabrina Ciancone, who right away invited me to come live and base my efforts in Fontecchio, the village of her birth. This is how I came to arrive to live in Fontecchio.

In that first year, Fico invited me to propose a project that would have the chance of receiving government support. Additionally, both Fico and Fontecchio’s mayor asked if I thought I could create something similar to the Red Poppy Art House (an artistic center I founded in San Francisco in 2003: http://redpoppyarthouse.org/) for Fontecchio. I said, no way! (Mostly because I knew the insurmountable amount of work it would take and I didn’t think I had it in me to attempt such a project again). But I more or less went ahead and began crafting it anyways, as this, apparently, is a habit I do wherever I go. And so, I launched the project as the Fontecchio International Airport in 2020 (yes, in the middle of a global pandemic!).

Reabitare Con Arte and the Move to Larger Facilities

The first phase of “The Airport '' was based in a palazzo on the main square, different but near to the present location at Palazzo Galli. This coincided with an international residency project, Reabitare Con Arte, the one that I had been invited to propose to the Usrc and which facilitated a 1-month residency for 14 artists of different nationalities throughout 4 different municipalities in the region. In partnership with a Pescara-based organization, the project was awarded 60,000 euros in government support. I invited three colleagues to lead and implement the project while I continued to focus independent efforts on developing the Airport. 

The intention in naming it an “international airport” was to generate both humor and awareness, knowing that an airport can be immediately understood as a space of intersection between an incredibly diverse array of people going in different directions. It is a place where journeys depart and return. So I chose to use this as an accessible metaphor to communicate to people that this was above all a space of encounter - a place not just for artists, but a space wherein people from all kinds of backgrounds could intersect.

By the end of the second year, through the artist residencies facilitated by the Fontecchio International Airport and and those of Reabitare Con Arte combined, we succeeded in attracting participation of a wide spectrum of artist and creative professionals hailing from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, France, Germany, Iran, Mexico, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 

In late 2021, however, after 18 months of project development and due to various considerations, the Airport had to temporarily close its doors. During this time I was provided with a temporary residence by the Benedetti family. One of their sons, Davide Benedetti, a local engineer, thereafter introduced me to Franco Molina, proposing that the Fontecchio International Airport would be an ideal project to base itself in Signor Molina’s newly renovated palazzo, site of his childhood home. The palazzo, known as Palazzo Galli, was built by the Galli Family between 1700 and 1720 and expanded circa 1820/1830. It’s uppermost level is owned by the local municipality while the lower two levels belong to Signor Molina. The expansive facilities of the new location would accommodate more artists and studio/event space. Renovations were in delay, but by the last quarter of 2022, the Fontecchio International Airport settled itself into its new home. Since that time, we have welcomed artists and creatives from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Ireland, Spain, the United States and Venezuela.