VideoAsp, Siena, Permanent exhibition – Since 23 October 2025

Contemporary Art Becomes Care in Nursing Homes

Video Art works projected inside nursing homes for mental and physical well-being. This innovative project was made available by Videoinsight® Foundation – ETS for ASP Città di Siena.

Care for mental and physical well-being through the experience of contemporary art is entering the city’s senior living facilities for the first time. This is the goal of VideoAsp, an innovative project born from the collaboration between ASP Città di Siena and Videoinsight® Foundation – ETS, with the support of the Municipality of Siena and the involvement of Galleria FuoriCampo. The project will be implemented in three nursing homes in the area: Campansi, Caccialupi, and Butini Bourke.

VideoAsp involves the introduction of permanent Video Art stations inside nursing homes, with daily screenings of contemporary artworks carefully selected for their transformative potential. The images, selected according to the principles of the Videoinsight® Method, developed by Rebecca Russo—collector, philanthropist, founder, and president of the Foundation—stimulate emotions, memories, and cognitive processes in an instinctive, simple, and natural way, regardless of age or condition.

“I applaud this initiative, which stems from the 2025 General States of Health Day, where we brought together the best and most innovative national experiences to discuss the theme of Art and Health,” commented Giuseppe Giordano, Councilor for Health for the City of Siena. “This new initiative, following that of Pet Therapy, confirms that the City of Siena’s health promotion policies are translating into concrete actions, in this case benefiting the elderly living in our public nursing homes and nursing homes. The benefits of video art are well known for reducing anxiety and stress, for exercising the memory to slow cognitive decline, and for promoting emotional well-being in general. I would like to thank the Presidency and Management of the City of Siena Health Authority for believing in this project, and especially Rebecca Russo, President of the Videoinsight® Foundation – ETS, for her generosity and philanthropy, which have allowed us to bring an exclusive and innovative service to our city, the first of its kind in the country.”

It is now well known that the slogan of this Board of Directors, particularly marked at its inception by the Covid protocols, is: more ‘social and less medicine’. In this framework – recalls Guido Pratesi, President of Asp Città di Siena – we have developed, alone and in synergy with various citizen ‘service clubs’, in particular, Lions, Rotary, Inner Wheel, Knights of Malta, as well as the MPS Foundation, a series of actions that, without impacting the financial statement, made an important contribution to the achievement of our goal, such as the donation of tablets, pet therapy and funding for the “Alzheimer’s train” project. Today we present another experience related to art in retirement homes. A therapy designed by Videoinsight® Foundation – ETS for the care and assistance of frailties related to the elderly. An innovative and challenging project that is made available to us, on a priority and free of charge, by Videoinsight® Foundation – ETS, a philanthropic institution that chose us to validate the project. We are We are therefore grateful to Rebecca Russo who deemed us worthy of accompanying her in this project, making us a privileged partner with whom to share what can only be a success, and, obviously, a ‘relief’ in the days of our residents.”

“Today we proudly present a unique project in Italy: the introduction of Video Art for Health in our Residential and Residential Care Facilities (RSA) and Residential Nursing Homes (RA). This experiment combines art, science, and care, born from the generous vision of Dr. Rebecca Russo and the Videoinsight® Foundation, which has been promoting well-being through artistic experiences for years,” commented Rocco Lerose, Director of the Siena Health Authority. “For Siena Health Authority, this is an important step: we are bringing not only an additional, innovative service to senior care facilities, but a new form of connection and emotion, capable of reawakening memories, alleviating anxiety, and restoring beauty to everyday life. With this project, Siena confirms its vocation as a city that knows how to innovate in the name of culture, health, and humanity.”

“Video art is a waking dream. It evokes, narrates, transports. It is a window onto the invisible, where images and sounds become living matter, capable of striking a deep chord. As in dreams, in video art reality transforms, meanings escape and then return, changed, internalized,” explains Rebecca Russo, Founder and President of Videoinsight® Foundation – ETS. “Watching an artist’s video is like being swept away by visions, intuitions, and pure emotions. It is an intimate experience, inviting you to lose yourself and find yourself elsewhere, beyond rationality, in the sensitive realm of the symbolic. Video art does not ask to be understood, but felt. It is a dreamlike language that reconnects us to what lies hidden in waking life: desire, memory, evolution. It is there that art becomes a dream, and the dream becomes art.”

“In an era where health is increasingly recognized as a complex and integrated condition, involving not only the body but also the mind, social relationships, and the environment, we believe it is essential to rethink healthcare facilities as spaces open to art. VideoAsp,” comments Esther Biancotti, Director of the FuoriCampo Gallery, “is not only a philanthropic gesture, but a concrete example of an alliance between art and medicine, culture and science, vision and social responsibility, recognizing art’s active role in building a new culture of health, more attentive to the human, relational, and emotional dimensions of each individual. As FuoriCampo, we are delighted to be an active part of this journey. We have always worked to promote an art that goes beyond passive observation, but that can impact reality, raise questions, and spark dialogue; an art capable of transcending conventional contexts to encounter new, diverse, and sometimes unexpected spaces and audiences, as on this occasion.”