The Gender Bender team welcomes with happiness and pride the recent appointment of Daniele Del Pozzo as the new Councillor for Culture of the City of Bologna.

This is an important recognition for a man who founded and led the Gender Bender Festival with passion and foresight since 2003, thus helping to make the Cassero LGBTQIA+ Center and Bologna spaces for the cultural avant-garde, capable of questioning the present through the lenses of plurality and inclusion.

We are confident that Daniele will be able to face this new responsibility with the sensitivity and attention that have always distinguished him, bringing forward a vision of culture that takes into account contemporary issues and celebrates the multiple expressions of identity. We welcome with confidence and joy this new chapter in his journey, knowing that the Gender Bender project and the many projects that Daniele has created will continue to evolve and travel new paths, also thanks to the work of a team that has been formed and consolidated over the years.

Thank you, Daniel, for spreading the seeds of ideas, creativity and visions that will continue to grow. 

Congratulations and all the best in this exciting new challenge!

Some words from Daniele del Pozzo: 

“Last Saturday I accepted the position of Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Bologna; a role which I accepted with a strong sense of responsibility and with pleasure for the recognition I received.

It is an important political role for Bologna, a city with a rich cultural complexity, which continues to be a guiding light for exploring the contradictions and potentials of our contemporary times.

I am happy and proud to carry forward a vision of culture that is mindful of the place and the pluralities that shape it.

I now leave the projects that have been carried out with Gender Bender over these years with great gratitude for the human and professional growth that has come to me from the relationships that have been happily built over the years locally, nationally and internationally.

I leave the role of curator with the lightness that comes with the complete confidence I place in the team I have worked with at Cassero over the years; an exceptional team: young, competent and united. I am sure they will do an excellent job.

I now feel ready to take with me, in my new role as Councillor for Culture, those invaluable skills I have developed over the years, as well as an in-depth knowledge of the people and organizations that give life to the city’s cultural life, its history, critical issues and great potential.

I will benefit from a healthy curiosity and a natural instinct to continue to engage in cultural activism; an innate willingness to act actively with the tools of culture in order to make a positive transformation on the reality in which we all live.”

Daniele Del Pozzo