Shaping Culture & Sustainability. A chat with cultural entrepreneur Ruggero Pietromarchi

In this episode, Ruggero Pietromarchi, the visionary founder of Threes Productions and Terraforma Festival, joins us to discuss his journey in cultural production and the exciting upcoming Terraforma EXO event in Milan.

Ruggero delves into the evolution of his company, highlighting the importance of collaboration and sustainability in their projects. He emphasizes that cultural events should go beyond mere entertainment to foster critical thinking and meaningful dialogue.

Ruggero also shares the challenges of running a business in the cultural sector, expressing concerns about the industry's current state. Despite these challenges, his optimism and commitment to creating unique and immersive experiences remain unwavering.

Tune in as we explore the intersection of art, sustainability, and cultural impact with one of the most innovative figures of Europes creative music and culture scene. 

Fore more information please visit cultureshifts.net and follow us on Instagram & LinkedIn.

Transcript

Hello, I'm happy to introduce our third season, The New Creativity. This year in our Culture Shifts Magazine podcast, we will be talking to thought leaders, visionaries and experts to share their insights on redefining creativity in our ever -evolving world. Culture Shifts Magazine provides insights into relevant areas of culture, society and business. In our podcasts, we talk to people from different sectors who are enabling change through new strategies, visions and communication concepts. I'm Moritz Gautlets, founder of Couchershifts and your host.

Today I'm delighted to welcome Ruggero Pietromarchi, the founder of Threes Production and Terraforma Festival. Terraforma was born in 2014 as an international festival of experimental music oriented towards sustainability, conceived as a platform for research and artistic experimentation, guided by core values of care and respect for people and the environment. Ruggero is a pioneer in the cultural landscape, renowned for his innovative approach to organizing events,

that seamlessly combine electronic and experimental music, art and sustainability. He has redefined the concept of cultural production, pushing boundaries and setting new standards in the industry. Ruggero, thank you so much for joining today. How are you? Hi everyone, and thank you Moritz for the kind invitation. I'm very good, thank you. Actually, I have to say thank you for inviting me because we are in Milan in your studio that is based in Assab One, a cultural hub in the city.

Moritz Gaudlitz (01:58.894)
Very nice here. There's rain outside also, which is not so nice, but it gives us a nice atmosphere. And I sense some special atmosphere here. Does this space give you enough creativity or creativity at all? Well, it does. It's a very important space for me and for Threats Productions in general, because it's actually the space, the place we were born. In 2012, we were three young friends and we wanted to organize a festival which then later became Terraforma, as you said, in 2014. Though we realized very soon that we didn't have the experience to set up such a complex event a festival can be. And so we started to start with some smaller scale productions and Assab One and actually Elena Forrestani, the founder and owner of the space. She was kind enough to host us with the very first Thrice Productions. We worked here for a couple of years putting on these productions.

Then Terraforma arrived and a few years later Elena approached me coming to one of our concerts in Chiesa Rossa and she mentioned that she was actually going through some renovation of the space and this was around 2019 and just in one year we decided to relocate here our studio. Unfortunately then Covid happened so we couldn't really work from here for quite some time, but we kept it strong. And in the end we are here and later we got joined by other great studios such as Forma Fantasma, who are our neighbors and other creative studios. So it's a very nice and inspiring context. Fantastic. Yeah, no, I think it's always brilliant to be surrounded by other creatives and by people that work in a field of production, in a field of interdisciplinary work. Talking about interdisciplinary work, you coming from someone who...

Moritz Gaudlitz (03:52.302)
started a music festival, then a production company, and within the last 10 years, that happened so much. Can you give me like a small overview in like how Threes Production makes production and what is part of Threes Production also in terms of events? We started with a very specific idea of organizing a festival, not just because we were interested in bringing to Italy a specific experimental music scene that wasn't much around and also to give some kind of recognition to the electronic music genre by itself, which in Italy has been pretty much neglected as a purely hedonistic or dance, not such as a culture, let's say. But we were really looking into the festival format as a very specific format that could enable our audience, our friends to get transported into a very immersive and different kind of reality, let's say out of the event dynamic, because you know, especially in Milan, there's so many events and many of them are very interesting, but they don't really manage to give some kind of a because it's very in and out kind of event. So we wanted to recreate a space, kind of a sociological project in a way, anthropological if you think of it. And so going back to your questions, we were very specific on organizing a festival, a festival with a campsite, with a very specific setup. And after a few years, I decided to go full.

time on it, full on, let's say. And so we started to focus more and more on thrift productions with the idea of developing a cultural agency in Italy, which works with different entities, institutions, brands, call it whatever you want. Of course, music is our main language, being it mainly experimental music, it's very easy to cross bridges in between the performative world, the art world, even fashion.

Moritz Gaudlitz (05:56.526)
That's how it started essentially and that's what we are now. It's a small team of seven people working all year round on a number of productions that cross in between sound experimentation, art, ecology and architecture. These are the main fields that we address. Thank you so much for the first great overview. You've been talking about also the changes and maybe within the last years and what you did. I would be interested also in how do you see the landscape?

let's say festivals, you said it's not about just the event, it's also about the experience. How did that change maybe also compared to 10 years ago and also with the rise of social media, with the rise of the digital world? How you can make an experience still an experience when I say that very critical now, if everything that you see you've probably already seen somewhere? Well,

It's not easy for sure. I have to say I am not a festival guy. This might be surprising, but like I was saying before, I was really interested in creating this kind of moment. I'm not the guy who goes to every festival, every concert. I'm really interested in the more experimental dynamics of such an event, such as a festival in a way. And regarding what you were saying,

I think we managed to do that at Terraforma to recreate a very specific and unique setup, not just by, of course, telling the event in a space such as Villa Arconati, which, of course, gave a lot of value and a lot of uniqueness, but also in creating some kind of a grammaturgical setup. I don't know if this is the right word, but I always really cared about creating dramaticness. Yeah.

in the event we create and this for example was given a terraforma by the very specific thing of having one act at a time. I don't see them very often, this is something that for example I discovered through a festival in Japan in 2012.

Moritz Gaudlitz (08:04.302)
It's called the Labyrinth. It's an epic techno festival in the forest of Naiba, north of Niigata. And they used to have this one musician at the time, one DJ at the time. And in this way, you really manage to create a one community thing, Escape the FOMO, and at the same time, on our case, where we bridges different genre of music from music concrete to techno.

from dub to more jazzy or experimental stuff, you really managed to put the spot, the same light spot on all the acts. And that was very interesting to see the people moving from Jeff Mills to Francesco Cavaliere with the same attention, with the same curiosity. That's something. That's really nice. And also, just like I wanted to add something for the listeners, that Villa Arconati was the location where you did Terraforma for the last years, and it's a villa.

I can't. It's an 80th century villa located about 30 minutes from Milan. It's considered kind of the small version of Versailles of north of Italy. And.

Incredibly enough, it was abandoned for more than 20 years. So what we did, we reached out the owner, it's a private property still, and we managed to make a deal. So he would let us organize the festival and instead of paying the rents, this for the very first editions, we would start a recovery plan of the park. So this is the very starting point of our sustainability program at Terraforma.

Yeah, that helps me to come to my next question because terra forma is Italian and it means forming the ground, no, forming the terra. This was the idea behind it. And I find it quite interesting because our podcast series now this season is a lot focused on the digital and on the artificial intelligence also. And I'm very happy to talk to you about probably the opposite. Maybe you, of course, in music and in production and...

Moritz Gaudlitz (10:09.422)
in inviting artists, interdisciplinary artists, you're also confronted with that. But the whole idea of sustainability, the idea of the earth, the idea of nature, that's very important for your work. For Terraforma, as well as for Threes Productions, like when you do consulting or production for institutions, what's your agenda here? Or what is your strategy? And do you have like a USP?

We don't actually. I have to say it's a very complex thing when you address sustainability. At Terraforma, I think we really managed to do something nice because we had the chance to really put our hands on it in a way. The idea was that a festival as well as a cultural event could also be, let's say, a practice of regeneration of a space.

So not a usual event that goes in and out with tons of equipment and structures and stuff. But the idea was really to take care of a place, Villa Arconati, that in a way belongs to the community because as I was saying before, it's a national monument and like unfortunately many places in Italy, it was left abandoned and it needed some help, some care. And at the same time, it needed some kind of a

reinterpretation. So the idea was to really reinterpret it in a new way, but at the same time also respecting the nature of the site because Villa Arconati was a Villa di Delizia, which means a place to have fun of the original owner. They used to have incredible parties and stuff, so not very distant from what we did. But at the same time, now in 2000,

whatever, we also wanted to make things with a purpose. And so the idea of an event trying to taking care of a space, Villa Arconati, we were also lucky because you need some kind of luck. So later on, a foundation jumped in. And so we really managed to renovate the space, which today it's totally different from what it was 10 years ago when we approached it. And that's also one of the reason,

Moritz Gaudlitz (12:25.39)
where we decided to evolve the format, evolve the festival. Okay, fantastic. So I'll come back to the teaser you just gave us about the new format of Terraforma. You were saying that the strategy or your mission for Ville Arconati was also to redo the space, to cultivate the space by implementing or adding a festival layer. What's the next step for Terraforma Festival? So there's many.

There's many, like I mentioned to you before, after a while organizing the festival, we started developing a number of three productions. That's what we like most, to experiment with the artist, of course, and within different formats. So always to find new ways of experimenting within the cultural field. So at a certain point when Villa Arconati...

kind of change within us and within the world around us, we decided it was time to evolve and to go in different directions. So there's not one answer to your questions, but there's many. For instance, to go very practical, we are now planning mainly two new projects related to Terraforma. One will still, let's say, keep the relation to the original site, Villa Arconati. It's called the Radical School. The name.

It's quite hilarious and it's going to be a summer school. So I'm very looking forward to the shift. It's quite big to move from a thousand people festival to a huge, I don't know how many it's going to be, 30, 50 participants summer school. It's quite a big shift and it's going to be in partnership with the...

architecture school from London, DAA, and it's going to be with musicians, architects, and thinkers about ecology and different kinds of stuff, and I'm very excited to do. The other main project is called Terraforma EXO, and it got already announced, and it's not a festival, it's a cultural manifestation that is going to happen in June 15 and 16 in the very central Parco Sempione in Milan.

Moritz Gaudlitz (14:35.982)
Fantastic. Can you give me some more information about listeners, what the format will be like? Will there be music? Will there be film installations? So the idea is always to reflect and to address the same topics as, let's say, the original Terraforma, so sound and ecology.

but with different formats and on different levels. So like I was saying, it's a two days program. It's going to start in the morning of a Saturday with an entry speech by David Toope, who is a legendary musician, researcher, writer, extremely known for his book Ocean of Sound. And later on, we're going to have site -specific sound installation across the park, as well as sound works. And of course,

performances. The main focus is going to be around the Triennale Design Museum, but there's going to be also different acts around the park. Are you planning also on reshaping the park or is there some idea also in recultivating the park? Because it's one of those places in Milan that are kind of nice also. No, it's beautiful. Parco Sempione is amazing. It's really interesting from different points of view. Historically, of course,

culturally there's so many communities living in the park. Of course, it's a first edition, so when you think of such cultural projects, productions, you need to think midterms at least. So this year is going to be the first and we're going to test it out both the sides, the collaborations and the project itself. And let's see, so we don't want to have massive intervention on the park for this year.

Thank you so much, Ruggero. You've been talking about collaborations that play obviously a crucial part in cultural production. You work with brands, but also, I would say foundations and other people. How is that collaboration going on? How much do they maybe also give input in terms of creative processes, or is it completely always independent?

Moritz Gaudlitz (16:41.934)
You mean in general or related to this new Terraforma EXO? No, related to Terraforma EXO because I assume that also like being in the heart of Milan is more difficult than in a private space outside of the city. Yes, and collaboration, like you're saying, play a crucial role always. It's been there since Terraforma at Billar Conati, the idea of creating a network. For me, it's always part of a sustainable method in a way.

you need to bond with other communities, other realities. And moving in the very heart of Milan makes the festival even more local in a way. The project is even more local. So we immediately thought of creating very solid synergies with different entities in Milan, really on different levels. From, let's say, the most institutional.

So I'm talking about Assessorato alla Cultura, the cultural bureau in Milan, as well as the Parco Sempione and the Triennale Design Museum. And I have to say they've been all very welcoming and collaborative as for now. But at the same time, we want to create a more, let's say, underground network. So Gatto Verde, for example, is this new party that we're partnering with.

It's related to Club Adriatico, a legendary party happening in the Riviera, and it's a close friend of ours, and finally we managed to collaborate together, as well as Hundebiss Records. It's a label based in Milan who's been putting out some of the most interesting talents from both local and international scene.

So we are co -programming all of our Sunday program. And so, yeah, it's essential and we are putting a lot of work into collaborations. Collaborations are crucial, I think. But for you, as far as I understood it now in our conversation and from what I also know about Threes Productions and Terraforma, a collaboration was always the key. It was probably part of the foundation of forming the Terra. But what do you think, how important be...

Moritz Gaudlitz (18:54.67)
became collaborations also internationally because you work a lot in Italy obviously. How important are also international collaborations or also productions that you do abroad? We always had a very open view on that. I always figured out that Terraforma needed to be open to the world in a way and actually it was quite special.

for a project in Italy to have such an international crowd, for example. Because of that, we have been traveling a lot constantly to create networks around Europe and not only. And this managed to start some very nice networking on a European scale. For example, we are part of two very nice networks of international festivals, both founded by the...

Creative Europe funding. We see that as a result of the Threes Production international outlook. Thank you so much. Threes Production, you do your own productions, you do your own concerts, you have your artists that you support, also visual artists. Is there also like a commercial aspect of Threes Productions? Are you also like consultants and work with companies or even institutions or governments that say, hey, maybe not just...

please organize a festival to make our city park nicer, but some other concepts. Absolutely. We do that. Not so much, I have to say, but we like to do that. And we were born within that because always going back to Terraforma, but it was born out of the idea of, let's say, cultural entrepreneurship. So in Italy, there isn't much cultural funding and what there is, it's mainly into...

theater, opera and classical stuff, let's say. So there's not space for experimental and there's no space for electronics. So we knew that since the very beginning and so we immediately were looking for sponsorships and to develop projects with sponsors. So since the very start of the festival we had this in mind and this made it possible to develop certain skills. Also being in Milan, of course,

Moritz Gaudlitz (21:06.222)
helped us in a way because Milan, there's a very rich scene of private investors or private institutions that are looking for content or just looking for ideas or young cultural entrepreneurs. So on both hand, we were conscious about that, that we needed to develop that in order to survive. And at the same time, we were lucky enough to find a very fertile ground.

in the millionaires surrounding. Okay, fantastic. You were just mentioning the word survive. This is always, and it clicks in my head because I like to always ask the challenge question, like what are the challenges? Because obviously running a business like that, focused based on that, seems to me the best thing you can do. It's a miracle. I call it a miracle. We also between friends, we call it a miracle because the equilibrium is really thin. So,

It's a lot of passion that rises. It's a miracle because we managed to pay our bills, but at the same time, there is much more work than what somebody could afford, could calculate, could pay back. It's not easy, but at the same time, for now, the balance is good. So I keep on going. So yeah, that's great. And it sounds like that you rather say no to something instead of like not being able to, to, to maybe fulfill the needs or something that doesn't.

Yeah, and having done 10 years of productions, I have to say that people recognize a very strong identity, so they respect that and they follow our ideas, they follow what we propose most of the time. So it hasn't been so difficult. I'm not saying to survive, but to work with brands and going back to the thing, because it can be quite complex and easy to be overwhelmed by the branding.

But as I was saying, I think we manage to always have such a peculiar and strong identity that they recognize as not for the massive audience we have, but for the very, let's say, specific pinnacle or whatever it is, ideas that we can put on the table. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like a very sustainable idea and approach, not just sustainable in terms of ecological sustainability, but also long lasting and authentic. Thank you.

Moritz Gaudlitz (23:31.982)
In the intro of the podcast I've been talking or explaining also that the Terraforma festival and also Threes Productions values are like the core is the value of care and respect for people and the environment. Is it still like that? Of course it is. I mean, I think you picked this from the Terraforma. It's very specific about the Terraforma, but we applied it everywhere in the studio. It needs to start from that. Otherwise there's no way.

and to all the productions we do. But you at Threes Productions, you work also digitally, like on digital projects or platforms or with your artists? Yes, we do that. We need to do that because it's essential. I'm a little bit critical because I think this digital realm should really help us out to make things easier. And many times it just became another layer of complexity. So...

But this is another thing and to go to your questions, we need to do that because it's essential. We work a lot with digital artists and we have some team that we activate for specific projects depending on the client or the project itself. It's not exactly fun for me, but it's interesting, it's intriguing. Okay. Thank you so much. I'm coming to my last question and...

I always like to ask these classic future question. You already said future. There are some people, some guests of this podcast, they refuse to answer questions about the future because unfortunately, or - Because we are in the future. We are in the future or we know that anything that could happen in the future could also not happen. So my question would be for you, what innovations or trends in your field do you predict maybe, or you see coming that will completely shape the future?

of cultural productions or festivals? So, it's a tricky one. Unfortunately, at this very moment, I'm not very optimistic like I used to be a few years ago. I thought that this digitalization could help much more than it is doing. I was hoping in a generational turnover, which is happening, but not for the best, from my point of view. Unfortunately, I was really hoping that at least in Europe, we would...

Moritz Gaudlitz (25:53.902)
take culture more seriously. From what I see, especially in Italy, it's going in the exactly opposite direction. Cultural, it's more and more mistaken for just entertainment. And it's not really perceived as a way of critical thinking. This is what we're trying to do. We are...

exchanging opinions and ideas with artists and our communities all the time just to make more questions rather than giving answers and I think that is a crucial aspect for the cultural sector to be able and question everything constantly, not giving answer and from the trend that I see...

in Italy and all over Europe, I see, like I was saying, exactly the opposite. So I don't have at this very moment some very optimistic feelings. Thank you so much. You answered the question and it was a really nice answer from my point of view. And I would thank you so much, Ruggero, for being part of this episode of Culture Shifts Magazine podcast. And we are very looking forward to the new Terraforma EXO edition this spring, summer.

in Milan, Parco Sempione. Yes, 15 and 16 of June. I'm looking forward to welcoming you. And thank you, Moritz, for this kind and nice conversation. And thank you all for listening. Ciao, ciao. Thank you. Ciao, ciao.

Moritz Gaudlitz (27:34.254)
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