Italian Institute of Culture

The Heart of Italian Heritage in Dublin

Found in the largest cities of five continents, the Italian Institute of Culture is a perfect place of meeting and dialogue for intellectuals, artists and other cultural operators, but also for ordinary citizens, both Italian and foreign, who wish to establish or keep a relationship with Italy.

The Institute not only promotes and conserves Italian heritage, as it is a centre of production and source of up-to-date information about Italy, but it becomes an essential reference point for Italian communities abroad and for people interested in Italian Culture.

Caterina Muratore is an administrative assistant of the Italian Institute of Culture, in charge of library management, language courses, social media management and event promotion. I had the opportunity to interview her and she explained the Institute’s goal and main resources to me.

Image Credits: IIC Dublin Instagram Post

About the Institute’s Mission and Collaborations

The Italian Institute of Culture based in Dublin is linked to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Italy and works as their Cultural Office in Ireland. Therefore the primary mission of the Institute is the promotion of the Italian language and culture abroad.

“We contribute to promote and preserve Italian culture and heritage by two main streams of action: by organising cultural events that are the spectrum of cultural things that you can find in Italy and we are passionate about (from literature, cinema, art, history, photography, design, music, etc.) and by offering Italian language courses”, said Caterina.

To contribute in the promotion of Italian Heritage in a broader sense, IIC collaborates with many institutions, either local communities or international organisations. They are part of an important network of national institutes and bodies called EUNIC, which stands for European Union National Institutes for Culture. So they cooperate with other cultural institutions from countries all around Europe.

“We are in contact with Alliance Française, Goethe Institut, Instituto Cervantes, but also the Cultural Office of the main embassies like Portugal and other embassies that are members of this EUNIC partnership”, she said.

There’s another project organised by EUNIC, so the Institute is part of this, called Short Shorts from Europe Film Festival, that will take place in Ireland starting from Thursday, October 10th in Galway, along with other dates in Limerick, Dublin and Cork.

In addition to the cinema, the Italian Institute of Culture collaborates for EUNIC Book Club where literature encounters authors from different European countries.

About the Institute’s Programs and Initiatives

I asked Caterina if she could tell me about some of the key programs and activities of the Institute and she replied:

“Apart from the organisation of the Italian language courses, we propose many cultural events. Every month we publish our program and it’s mostly in the period that goes from September until July, then in August we take a break (as well in the language courses). The cultural events are mainly offered for free to the public, and some of them are organised here in our institute premises”.

She continues, “We are located in Dublin 2, so it’s very central and easily accessible. Otherwise we collaborate with other venues: for example, in the past we used to organise some concerts at the Royal Irish Academy or other events at the Hugh Lane Gallery. Sometimes also with the National Concert Hall or we partnered with the Dublin City Castle for an art exhibition”.

Eventually they also cooperate with some relevant Irish Universities such as the Trinity College, University College Cork, University of Galway or University College Dublin, because the four of them have a Department of Italians, for this reason they like to collaborate with IIC to organise events.

How do you decide which cultural topics or themes to focus on for your events?

“We receive many cultural proposals from people from Italy who reach us and suggest some ideas. The person in charge for the programming of the cultural events is actually the director of the Institute, who reviews all the proposals and decides the program”, Caterina told.

She kept saying, “It depends on the period of the year, because we also have some initiatives that are promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and that are kind of repeated annually. For example, every second week of October is the Week Of The Italian Language In The World and we need to organise the type of events that are in theme of the initiative. Even more, in November, we have the Week Of Italian Cuisine Around The World and we know there are themes that we need to follow”.

In the end, it can really vary a lot, according to collaborations that may have with local artists or institutions, or from the proposal they receive form Italy, together with the director’s background of networking. They change the director of the Institute every four years. So they actually are connected to Rome, which is where ICC main headquarters are.

Image Credits: IIC Dublin Instagram Post

About the Institute’s Audience and Outreach

A curiosity that I was interested in knowing is whether indeed the Italian Institute of Culture here in Dublin had also an active non-Italian audience, and the response impressed me positively. The Institute’s primary audience is its students. International students are a big part of the attendance, because they are easy to reach in terms of communication and promotion of IIC initiatives.

Caterina recalls, “We have our point of contact or mailing list of people that we know are interested, and we generally invite them. So I would say the Italian community, of course, is another big part of the people that participate in our events, but even students and professors from Irish Universities”.

“It’s mixed. So we have a good number of both Irish, International and Italians. Really dedicated audience”, she affirms.

What strategies do you use to attract younger audiences or people unfamiliar with italians’ culture?

“We try to be modern and use a lot of social media like Facebook, Instagram and X as well. We also operate with Eventbrite, which we found is very useful to reach a broader audience, because there are so many people that are following and checking it”, she said.

Instead when it comes to kids, they rely on Comites, which is an organisation of Italians residing abroad in Ireland. She explains, “It’s a big community of Italian people living here and they are very interested in organising events for kids. So most of the time, we collaborate with them and it’s run by volunteers”.

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About the Institute’s Cross-Cultural Dialogue and Exchange

As was said before, the Italian Institute of Culture offers whoever seeks it the opportunity to get to know the Italian language and culture, through the organisation of courses, the management of libraries and the supply of educational material and publications.

Caterina said, “Our events are open to everybody and most of them are offered for free to the public. We try to reach as many people as possible, depending on their personal interest, of course”.

They are also a centre for CILS exams for the certification of proficiency in the Italian language. She told me that increasingly people are interested in this language validation in order to get citizenship. So this became another big factor that motivates people as well.

“As I said, we also have this collaboration with other European National Institutes. In that way, we also extend to people from other countries: basically they might go to an event that is connected to us, and even If is at another venue, people can get to know our reality, and they might get in touch”, finished Caterina.

Challenges and personal experience working at the Institute

What are the biggest challenges your institute faces in promoting cultural understanding today?

Caterina points out, “It’s not always easy. There are some events that maybe can get a lot of audience, like for films, generally. Also we recently organised the Italian Irish Literature Festival, and had a very, very good attendance. Not to mention that we collaborate every year with Culture Night and we always organise events for that. So if it’s a bigger event we always may have good attendance”.

She continues, “We always try in order to reach more public to have both languages, like the Italian films are screening Italian but with English subtitles. However we have this series of interviews with the experts from Italian history and it’s kind of a smaller area of interest”.

“Also, musical events are always very well attended because everybody loves Italian music and opera. The biggest challenges are still events concerning academic subjects, if they are too specific on a topic, and in Italian, especially”.

While speaking to Caterina, it was clear that she found her own job to be incredibly rewarding. Stating, “It’s great because you’re always connected to the cultural reality of what’s happening in real time. So it’s not only our event that has great writers like Dante or Manzoni, but we also have many contemporary events. It’s an opportunity to discover aspects of Italian culture you didn’t know, starting from the past, but also modern and contemporary Italian culture”, Caterina said.

For her, working at the Italian Institute of Culture every day is different. She is motivated and stimulated to work there because it’s “a very dynamic type of job”. She continues, “You know that you have your task to do and everything related to it, but there are always new things to do with the promotion, the courses, the actual organisation of the event: you never get bored!”.

Upcoming Events at the Institution

To find out their October’s events program, check the Italian Institute of Culture Dublin website. I would like to recommend two events in particular: first, the play “Raffaello, il figlio del vento”, a theatre show with Matthias Martelli on the life and works of the painter Raffaello Sanzio. It will be Tuesday 15th of October at 7.30pm, at Pavilion Theatre – Dún Laoghaire (tickets: €15/€12). The second suggestion is the mentioned before Short Shorts Film Festival 2024, which is a selection of short films from 12 EU countries of the EUNIC Ireland Cluster. Comedy, animation, drama and much more: you can’t miss it!

You can also find the Italian Institute of Culture Dublin on Facebook or Instagram, to stay up to date on their cultural events that may interest you and be part of the Italian community in Ireland.