The new season of Radio GAMeC, curated by Lorenzo Giusti and Lara Facco, is a Collateral Event of the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (pre-opening May 6, 7, 8, 2026; open to the public from Saturday May 9 to Sunday November 22, 2026).
From Tuesday 5 to Sunday 10 May, it will broadcast from the premises of Radio Vanessa, a historic local radio station broadcasting on FM from the city center of Venice, between the Arsenale and the Giardini.
Programming will continue through until November 22, and the content will be available online via Radio GAMeC website and the project’s own dedicated channels.
A new season of Radio GAMeC, the digital platform of GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, is ready to hit the airwaves. Established in 2020 in response to the lockdown, the platform has gained international recognition as an innovative model of museum practice.
For its seventh edition, Radio GAMeC lands in Venice as a Collateral Event of the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, presenting Pedagogy of Hope.
The project title echoes that of the museum’s 2026 program—dedicated to education as a practice of freedom and transformation—sharing themes and objectives through a reinterpretation of the radio platform as a device for listening and a tool for critical and participatory learning.
Conceived from the outset as a digital archive of voices, reflections, and imaginaries, Radio GAMeC will relaunch from Venice as a temporary broadcaster: from Tuesday 5 to Sunday 10 May, during the opening week of the Biennale Arte 2026, Pedagogy of Hope will be on air from the premises of Radio Vanessa, a historic independent local radio station founded clandestinely in 1978, and the only one still broadcasting on FM from the town center, between the Arsenale and the Giardini.
The “physical” headquarters of Pedagogy of Hope will be open to the public as a space for listening, encounter, and participation, combining on-site experiences with FM broadcasting on Radio Vanessa and streaming on the project’s website and dedicated channels. The content will then be archived online and made available as a public resource accessible to everyone.
The reflections underpinning this new cycle are based on the same theoretical horizon that forms the basis of the museum’s 2026 programming, inspired by the work of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, offering a reinterpretation and contemporary update of his thought. Today, we need to question which forms of knowledge and skills are essential to understanding and transforming contemporary reality, and which educational practices can foster autonomy and critical thinking in a context of widespread conflict where algorithms and digital flows shape learning processes in an ever more automatized fashion. Equally central is the reflection on how dialogical processes can be integrated with the disciplinary expertise of cultural institutions. In other words, it involves clarifying what it means to educate today and through which tools.
Pedagogy of Hope will foreground decentralized perspectives and non-hegemonic forms of knowledge, placing them in dialogue with the theme of the Biennale Arte 2026, In Minor Keys, conceived by Koyo Kouoh (1967–25). The “minor keys” thus become not only a thematic reference but a genuine pedagogical approach capable of interrogating the present and opening spaces for imagination and hope.
The program will be developed as an open and dynamic process, progressively shaped through encounters and relationships formed over the course of the Biennale and beyond. It will take the form of a series of conversations with Italian and international guests, including artists, curators, educators, activists, researchers, and professionals from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, with the aim of fostering a broad and cross-cutting dialogue on the central themes of the project.
After the opening week, Radio GAMeC’s program will continue through until November 22, the closing date of the Biennale, with online broadcasts available via radio.gamec.it and Radio GAMeC’s own channels.
The digital broadcasts will not merely extend the in-person activities over time but will offer an opportunity to consolidate and expand an oral archive of learning, welcoming the new voices, experiences, and reflections that emerge throughout the Biennale Arte 2026.