Thinking through Practice: Lecture at the Sapienza University

Following the lecture delivered earlier this year at Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, Valentina Rossi, Director of the Gaudium Magnum Foundation, presented a second academic lecture at Sapienza University in Rome. Structured around the Foundation as a case study, the lecture examined how a private collecting initiative can gradually evolve into a public cultural institution through the development of governance structures, curatorial systems, and long-term project frameworks.

The presentation proposed that institutionalisation does not occur simply through legal formation, but through the construction of shared organisational language, operational continuity, and public responsibility. Using the Foundation’s experience as a working model, the lecture explored the strategic and practical mechanisms through which cultural initiatives acquire institutional coherence over time.

The lecture was organised around three operational levels: people, paintings, and projects. At the level of people, Valentina Rossi examined how mission, governance, and institutional identity create a common structure for decision-making and long-term direction. At the level of paintings, the lecture focused on the transformation of specialist knowledge into systems of collection management, curatorial criteria, and institutional memory. At the level of projects, it argued that a collection becomes a true cultural enterprise when activated to generate public value through research, partnerships, interpretation, visibility, and cultural relevance.

More broadly, the lecture reflected on the evolving role of foundation leadership within the cultural sector. Rather than defining the director’s position as solely administrative or curatorial, Valentina Rossi proposed a synthetic and strategic model capable of mediating between private vision and public form, specialist expertise and organisational structure, and cultural ambition and operational sustainability.

This lecture forms the second chapter of Thinking through Practice, the Foundation’s ongoing project dedicated to reflecting on its institutional experience as a field of inquiry. Through a series of academic engagements and future editorial developments, the project examines the relationship between research, institutions, continuity, and public form, with a third lecture scheduled to follow soon.