pietro costa
founder & executive creative director Pietro Costa, planted the seed of a future BACAS when in 2003 he realized a major installation of his work titled Torri e Colonne di Luce at the Certosa di San Lorenzo in Padula. Born in Sant’ Arsenio, one of the eighteen towns that make up the Vallo di Diano, Pietro immigrated with his family to New York in 1972. He has been making art since 1978 and has shown his work in one-person and group exhibitions in the U.S. and in Italy, and in two exhibitions (2003 and 2006) at the Certosa di San Lorenzo in Padula. His work is part of the Guggenheim collection and has been reviewed by Italian and American publications. Costa has worked alongside numerous artists and curators (1982-1996) at the Guggenheim Museum installing hundreds of exhibitions world-wide as well as working on the realization of the Guggenheim Museum SOHO and Guggenheim Bilbao, and spent three years with Richard Serra assisting him in the production, engineering, and exhibition of his large-scale works. He received a New York Foundation for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship in 2003. Costa founded Luquer Street Projects, a not-for-profit - 501(c)3 in 2002 - to promote interdisciplinary activities between visual artists and other disciplines, ultimately inspiring the founding of BACAS and currently acting as its fiscal sponsor.
tiziana rinaldi castro
creative director of literary programs Tiziana Rinaldi Castro is the co-founder of literary programming for BACAS. A native of Sala Consilina, one of the eighteen towns that make up the Vallo di Diano, Tiziana has lived in New York since 1984. She is a novelist, short story writer, poet, and Classics professor at Montclair State University. She has published three novels in Italian, Il lungo Ritorno (2001), Due cose amare e una dolce (2007), e Come della rosa (2017), a book of poetry, Dai morti (1992), and several short stories in literary anthologies both in Italy and the US. She has just completed her first novel in the English language. Tiziana is married, has two daughters, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
rosella siani
creative director of architecture programs Rossella Siani is the co-founder of architecture programming for BACAS. An architect with a PhD in Architectural Technology and a primary interest in digital fabrication and parametric design, she is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Naples Federico II and is the associate editor of the international scientific journal SMC (Sustainable Mediterranean Construction). Rossella’s work has transcended the strict confines of the “architecture” field and has expanded into inter-disciplinary channels of design and systems analysis, often taking the forms of innovative furniture, systemic installations and cross-genre work. Rossella is the author of several scientific articles in prestigious journals and international conferences. She is currently working on the VAHA project, to enhance the digital fabrication.
stefan pollak
Coordinator of Sustainable Design Since 1999, Stefan Pollak has been tasked with the design and site-management for different buildings of social engagement in Côte d'Ivoire, Niger, Brazil and Guatemala. He has also been involved in cooperation projects in Côte d'Ivoire and Peru. Between 2011 and 2013, after the earthquake in L'Aquila he has worked as site-manager for the reconversion of Onna’s former kindergarten into a cultural venue, a project promoted by the German embassy in Rome.
Stefan teaches at the Università degli Studi di Roma Tre, at the Catholic University of America as well as at other universities. His researches are mainly focussed on construction systems with low environmental impact and collective design methods. On these issues he has published articles, papers for national and international conferences, and two books. He also runs training activities for students, professionals and representatives of local communities.
angelo costa
special projects Born and raised in Brooklyn, Angelo is currently working in real estate and project management. He graduated from Stony Brook University with a degree in in oceanography and marine science, with a concentration on how marine ecosystems react to an array of anthropogenic impacts. After graduation Angelo worked with a not-for-profit in the New York City public schools, teaching environmental literacy and consciousness with particular focus on the effects of plastics pollution in marine ecosystems. After spending numerous summers visiting family in the Vallo di Diano , Angelo joins BACAS to deepen his love for the region and to be immersed in an environment striving to retain its history and ecologically-minded relationship to its rich natural resources and beauty.
luquer street projects
a 501(c)3 organization Founded by visual artist Pietro Costa, in 2002, Luquer Street Projects, Inc. publishes English and English/Italian editions of poetry and collaborations between visual artists and other disciplines, sponsors literary, music and visual arts events, supports the bilingual proliferation of poetry and prose and encourages new and daring attempts to stretch the reach of visual art and other disciplines to new regions and audiences. Our goal is to create a system where the publication of each work generates the possibility of publishing new works, in a perpetual cycle.
LSP is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization located in Brooklyn, New York. All contributions are fully tax deductible. LSP is the fiscal sponsor for BACAS in the United States.