We started Spazio Nour (which means Space of Light in Italian and Farsi) with one goal in mind: to create beauty and share this with the community. Over the years we’ve gathered a group of unique and free souls from all over the world: artists, art-lovers, designers, professionals, passionate amateurs who inspire and are inspired by others.
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Spazio Nour is an artistic and cultural project born in Milan in 2014 with the goal to create a place of mediation between the language of contemporary art and the context in which it was being used. We are then talking about not just an atelier d’artiste nor an isolated center with an abstract and vague idea of art. Spazio Nour is an ever-evolving relationship, an experience that places in the heart of the battle the most urgent questions of modern society – immigration, integration, equal dialogue and bridge between cultures.
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During the last years, Spazio Nour adopted a synergic model, based on participatory art, site-specificity and community building. The model has as its final goal the promotion of new forms of cultural integration through the organization of workshops, expositions, art residency projects, meetings and collaborations with an international background. Through this work process, Spazio Nour created a fertile ground for mutual trust and sense of belonging, with care and respect, actively and positively affecting everyday life of the local community.
After seven years in Milan, Spazio Nour expanded internationally as a nomadic art space to Antwerp (Belgium), a city which houses more than 166 different nationalities. With its synergic model created over the years in Milan, Spazio Nour tackles difficulties in a completely different context in Antwerpen by bringing these various cultures together in moments of (public) encounter. In 2025, a decade after the founding of Spazio Nour, we are opening another exciting chapter with a second location in the historic castle Hof d'Intere in Wechelderzande, Belgium. To read more about this beautiful castle, take a look under the ‘Castle’ tab.
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Spazio Nour is a socio-cultural meeting place that listens to the needs of the social system in which it settles. In Spazio Nour the different possible languages of contemporary art are intertwined with social design, in the form of a unique model of urban renewal. The community in which it operates at that moment, is the protagonist and recipient of artistic action; performances, workshops, installations, participatory projects and festivals are intended as artistic experiments and regenerative tools. Our main goal is to develop a behavioural model, allow it to evolve further and apply it in daily life: to offer people a cultural “safe space” where they can meet, and create new, shared spaces that synchronize with the needs of the environment.
Making art is making cities.
There is no art without society, and there is no society without art. Spazio Nour is a work of art that evolves continuously, it is able to make real and significant changes in the context in which it operates. Such changes are essential, as there appear to be more and more cracks in our cities, as a result of poor communication and increasing intolerance. The bigger the cracks get, the more the city bleeds. The golden line with which we reattach these fractions, is art. Art has an enormous capacity, and is able to break through the cultural and ethnic walls that are being built in our cities. Spazio Nour is a work of art that evolves continuously, it is able to make real and significant changes in the context in which it operates. ​
Spazio Nour’s journey started in the internal courtyard of Viale Bligny 42, the building located in the city center, between Porta Romana and via Bocconi, in that stretch of road that reveals a parallel world, the one known to the Milanese chronicle as a theater of dealing and petty crime. Before Spazio Nour, Bligny 42 was known as "El Camerùn"; a drug fort, a black hole. Now, its courtyard has become the beating heart of a microcosm, it is not just a common transit space, but a real square, where the encounter and clash between different cultures and lives take place. Contemporary art is a means to stimulate and create new social dynamics. Thanks to Spazio Nour, at Bligny 42 it breaks two barriers: the one between different cultures and the one between art and audience. The audience is now called to reject their passive position and participate in the different forms of the artwork itself.
Spazio Nour is a shared project that reflects the soul of those who contribute to it. The main values ​​of our practices are:
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Giving. We are all active participants and implementers of change that we all need, making sure that all of the experiences, skills and capacities that we have ourselves are available to everyone. In Spazio Nour we believe that everything we give will come back. In this way we make a difference in the city.
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Telling stories. Every form of art gives, tells and collects memories - from painting to music, from cinema to poetry, from cooking to photography. All people who come into contact with us are storytellers of new and different realities. The artist tells about the world from his point of view, which is an integral part of our idea of ​​change.
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Dreaming. Confidence in the future requires courage, and at the same time is the first step to envisioning new possible worlds. Spazio Nour is a shared dream, in which we can grow. Its continuation forces us to invariably look for new ways to enable that growth.
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Building. By becoming aware of what is worn out, fragmented and destroyed in our living environment, we move ourselves towards reconstruction; a sustainable, human reconstruction capable of filling the empty spaces of our cities with new, extraordinary possibilities.