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2025
Hope Academy is the place where university and art meet to give voice to collective memory, change social norms, and build a culture of safety.
Third Mission project of the University of Bologna
coordinated by Prof. Emanuela Carbonara, Professor of Economic Policy
Third Mission project of the University of Bologna
coordinated by Prof. Emanuela Carbonara, Professor of Economic Policy
"HOPE ACADEMY: Workplace Safety, Memory, and Collective Consciousness Through Art and Social Engagement."
Emanuela Carbonara, Department of Sociology and Business Law – University of Bologna
Melissa Moralli, Department of Sociology and Business Law – University of Bologna
Enrico Santarelli, Department of Economics – University of Bologna
in collaboration with: Imagem srl, multimedia production and design company
“Hope Academy: Arte e Sicurezza sul Lavoro.
Semi di consapevolezza sociale”
Workplace safety is today more than ever an urgent matter of social justice and human dignity. Despite an advanced regulatory framework – from the Workers’ Statute (1970) to the Consolidated Safety Act (2008) – the number of serious and fatal accidents remains high, as shown by INAIL data for 2025.
Inequalities amplify the problem: the highest risks are concentrated in sectors marked by precarious jobs, low wages, and weaker protections – such as construction, agriculture, and logistics – while the most vulnerable workers (young people, migrants, women in low-skilled positions) are often the most exposed.
In the face of these challenges, a cultural revolution is needed to make prevention an integral part of working life. It is not just about complying with formal obligations, but about building a workplace where physical health and mental well-being are recognized as fundamental rights.
Hope Academy is an initiative created to take up this challenge: to sow awareness through innovative languages such as art and creativity, and to transform the memory of workplace fatalities – the so-called “morti bianche” (“white deaths”) – into collective consciousness.
History
Hope Academy brings together university, art, and civil society in a path of research and public engagement on workplace safety, collective memory, and social sustainability. Launched in 2024, the project involves high school and university students, faculty members, researchers, and the artists Paola Samoggia and Carlo Magrì. It has given life to video art short films, installations, and collective reflections, promoting a constant dialogue between academic knowledge, creativity, and citizenship.
Mission
The mission of Hope Academy is to transform knowledge into social awareness, using the universal language of art to communicate in an immediate and inclusive way, creating a new culture of safety and collective memory.
Objectives
Raise awareness on workplace safety, risk, and prevention through innovative and interdisciplinary languages.
Promote the active participation of students, workers, and citizens, turning them from spectators into protagonists of a shared reflection.
Build collective memory on workplace fatalities, countering oblivion and stimulating processes of cultural and institutional change.
Connect university and society in a “third mission” pathway that brings together research, teaching, and social impact.
From Seed to Change: When Research Transforms Society
Hope Academy is not only an artistic project, but a pathway that produces cultural and social transformation.
Culture of prevention: video art short films and installations translate data and regulations into shared emotions, entrenching workplace safety in collective consciousness.
Active participation: students, faculty, researchers, and artists co-create together, moving beyond the classroom and making participants protagonists of change.
Dialogue with society: artistic works become tools to engage schools, communities, institutions, and businesses, generating new social norms on safety.
An endless cycle: each initiative produces learning, evaluation, and new actions, in an ongoing process of growth that connects research, creativity, and citizenship.
Hope Academy is not only an artistic project, but a pathway that produces cultural and social transformation.
Culture of prevention: video art short films and installations translate data and regulations into shared emotions, entrenching workplace safety in collective consciousness.
Active participation: students, faculty, researchers, and artists co-create together, moving beyond the classroom and making participants protagonists of change.
Dialogue with society: artistic works become tools to engage schools, communities, institutions, and businesses, generating new social norms on safety.
An endless cycle: each initiative produces learning, evaluation, and new actions, in an ongoing process of growth that connects research, creativity, and citizenship.
"Red Ribbon"
"Blank"
Subtitle: Choreography of memory, silent act of protest, choral gesture of awareness.
The second short film of Hope Academy, Blank carries forward the legacy of Red Ribbon and takes us further: from denunciation to the refusal of oblivion.
Created in collaboration with the students of the course “Social Innovation, Local Development and Collective Action” – Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology, it is a reflection on emptiness, forgetting, and the collective removal of workplace tragedies.
Blank explores what it means to forget – or worse, to erase – deaths that occur in places meant to protect us: the workplace.
The so-called “morti bianche” (“white deaths”), silent and reduced to a frightening normality, anaesthetize collective consciousness.
Too often, the victim ends up being blamed, oppressed by social norms that bend will and choice.
Because asking for protection, from a subordinate position, is often difficult or even impossible.
The white of the title becomes a symbol of absence but also of resistance.
Through choral dance, Blank stages bodies that fall and rise again, gestures that question silence, symbols that turn into language.
Union becomes strength: behind the white sheet, the dancer can expose himself and reach out to the limit only thanks to the strength of the companions who hold him.
Project Presentation Event: “HOPE ACADEMY: Workplace Safety, Memory, and Collective Consciousness Through Art and Social Engagement.”
2024
The project was realised with the contribution of Class 3A (electronics) of the Belluzzi-Fioravanti Institute in Bologna (professors Mariangela Mole, Anna Persetto) and A.s.d. Pontevecchio Annalisa Bentivogli (instructor) Greta Evangelisti (gymnast).
Title of short film 2024: RED RIBBON
The first short film of Hope Academy, created in collaboration with the students and teachers of class 3A Electronics at the Belluzzi Fioravanti Institute of Bologna and the A.S.D.Polisportiva Pontevecchio - Rhythmic Gymnastics Division, Red Ribbon is a work of denunciation — direct, almost shouted.
Through a performance of video art and artistic gymnastics, it conveys the restless gaze of adolescence on the world of work that lies ahead: marked by oppression, by the perverse intertwining of responsibility and negligence, and by illegality on construction sites.
The fading sunflower symbolizes the draining of vital energies.
The gymnast holding a skull stages the fear of death.
Real images of risky behaviors — electric wires in water, unmarked obstacles, violations of safety rules — expose a system where life can too easily be sacrificed.
A art piece that translates into images the fear and anger in the face of a system that fails to protect.
A reality where those who ask for protection are still perceived as fragile, incapable, “unfit” for work.
The choice of artistic gymnastics opens a dialogue with the world of sport, which will represent a fundamental line of development for the project in the coming years.
(13 and 23 May 2024)
Link: Festival dello Sviluppo Sostenibile 13/05/24
Link: Festival dello Sviluppo Sostenibile 23/05/24
©foto Bartolo Sicari
The first short film of Hope Academy, created in collaboration with the students and teachers of class 3A Electronics at the Belluzzi Fioravanti Institute of Bologna and the A.S.D.Polisportiva Pontevecchio - Rhythmic Gymnastics Division, Red Ribbon is a work of denunciation — direct, almost shouted.
Through a performance of video art and artistic gymnastics, it conveys the restless gaze of adolescence on the world of work that lies ahead: marked by oppression, by the perverse intertwining of responsibility and negligence, and by illegality on construction sites.
The fading sunflower symbolizes the draining of vital energies.
The gymnast holding a skull stages the fear of death.
Real images of risky behaviors — electric wires in water, unmarked obstacles, violations of safety rules — expose a system where life can too easily be sacrificed.
A art piece that translates into images the fear and anger in the face of a system that fails to protect.
A reality where those who ask for protection are still perceived as fragile, incapable, “unfit” for work.
The choice of artistic gymnastics opens a dialogue with the world of sport, which will represent a fundamental line of development for the project in the coming years.
(13 and 23 May 2024)
Link: Festival dello Sviluppo Sostenibile 13/05/24
Link: Festival dello Sviluppo Sostenibile 23/05/24
©foto Bartolo Sicari
UNIBO Department of Sociology and Economics Law YouTube site link to the short film: RED RIBBON
The project is a joint effort with IMAGEM Srl, a leader in the field of video art, and has been sponsored by various organizations, such as the Fondazione Aldini Valeriani, the Associazione Nazionale fra Lavoratori Mutilati e Invalidi del Lavoro (ANMIL), the Fiera Ambiente e Lavoro di Bologna, Officina Consulting, and the Associazione Amici Museo del Patrimonio Industriale.
2023
MUSEI
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| 1 | NO CRASH museum |
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after 32 months of work and 116 screenings
we present a new format of our Awareness Campaign
Witness our Values, a form of Intangible Heritage of our territory.
the Museum transforms itself from a container of history to a promoter of contemporaneity, enhancing a heritage and a social identity with a sense of ethical responsibility in line with the most ambitious European objectives.
we present a new format of our Awareness Campaign
NO CRASH museum
a video dance installation that brings the social themes of the world of Work into museumsWitness our Values, a form of Intangible Heritage of our territory.
the Museum transforms itself from a container of history to a promoter of contemporaneity, enhancing a heritage and a social identity with a sense of ethical responsibility in line with the most ambitious European objectives.
Every action for the promotion and development of the project will contain not only the action of a small company but the values of a territory that has spread ‘industrial culture’ throughout the world.
Thus, the Museum actively contributes to ‘making’ history', not just preserving it.
Thus, the Museum actively contributes to ‘making’ history', not just preserving it.
first presentation:
Museum of Industrial Heritage of Bologna
the event is part of the centenary calendar of the Italian Society of Contemporary Music (SIMC), the association founded by Alfredo Casella
Speakers: Renzo Cresti Critico Musicale_ Maura Grandi Direttore Del Museo Patrimonio Industriale Bologna_ Carlo Magrì Regia dei cortometraggi, Imagem Srl_ Massimo Mercelli Flautista e Presidente di Emilia Romagna Festival_ Cristina Mezzanotte Presidente Manageritalia Emilia Romagna_ Matteo Passini VDG Emilbanca Credito Cooperativo_ Paola Samoggia Compositrice e Direttrice Artistica di Imagem srl_ Sandra Samoggia Presidente presso Fondazione Aldini Valeriani _ Maria Rita Tagliaventi Professoressa Ordinaria Dipartimento di Sociologia e Diritto dell'Economia_ Andrea Talmelli Compositore e Presidente SIMC -Società Italiana Musica Contemporanea_ Daniele Vacchi Former Director Corporate Communications at IMA spa_ Andrea Vivi Socio e CEO di PRAXIS Consulting
press release
