24/08/2026
PEA Pedagogy Ecology and the Arts conference “praxis”
It is a pleasure to welcome Dr. Thomas Emmenegger as a keynote speaker at the PEA Conference “praxis.”
Thomas Emmenegger is a psychiatrist and President of Olinda, a social cooperative that has played a central role in transforming the former Paolo Pini Psychiatric Hospital in Milan into an open space for culture, community, social inclusion, and care.
A central part of this experience is Da vicino nessuno è normale (“Up Close, Nobody Is Normal”), the theatre and cultural festival created at the former psychiatric hospital. Since its beginnings in the 1990s, the festival has used theatre and culture to open the gates of the institution, bring the city into the former hospital, and create new relationships between art, mental health, and community life. Emmenegger’s work offers a powerful example of praxis: transforming the principles of deinstitutionalisation, inclusion, and human dignity into concrete cultural and social practices. His experience invites us to ask how art and culture can contribute to changing institutions, spaces, and relationships.
Euphur Euregional Platform on Human Dignity and Human Rights CRATere “freedom” Teatro Pratiko Accademia di Merano - Akademie Meran Centro per la Cultura PEA Pedagogy Ecology and the Arts conference Universität Innsbruck Università di Trento Free University of Bozen-Bolzano PEA Pedagogy Ecology and the Arts conference "praxis"
INFO: https://peaconference.org/spakers -2026