Education

Programmes built around the exhibitions, photography, technology and work: for schools at every level, for families, for young people and companies with MAST.Academy, and for the youngest children at the Nido Scuola. Activities for schools and families are free, with booking.

Schools

Andri Pol, Schoolgirls on Azumakofuji near Fukushima, Japan, 2005: schoolgirls in uniform running on Mount Azumakofuji

For primary, lower and upper secondary schools: a guided tour of the exhibition with MAST’s cultural mediators and a hands-on workshop, tailored to the participants’ age. The programme changes with every exhibition.

When: During exhibitions, Tuesday to Friday, 10.00 am – 12.30 pm
Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes
Groups: Up to 25 participants
Admission: Free, with booking
Bookings: Gallery Team · workshop@fondazionemast.org · +39 342 7711557

Online workshops. Kits to use in class or at home, for upper primary and for lower and upper secondary schools, on photography, the environment, and the history and architecture of MAST. They grew out of the exhibitions Image Capital, The MAST Collection, Ando Gilardi. Fototeca, Richard Mosse. Displaced, Inventions and Uniform.

Organised groups. Free guided tours for associations and company groups, with booking. workshop@fondazionemast.org

Latest programme · ended

May – September 2026

La scuola dei Becher

Guided tours, hands-on activities and workshops on the exhibition Bernd & Hilla Becher. History of a Method: the method and work of the two German artists, a reference point for generations of photographers. Three workshops, chosen according to the age of the class.

Landscapes in transformation

What is an industry? How do you recognise an industrial landscape? After the tour, students build an image halfway between analogue and digital and rework it according to possible events: abandonment, relocation, natural disaster, change of use, urban regeneration.

Objective / subjective

Selecting, ordering, presenting and relating images: applying a rule while building a personal narrative, which takes shape in a small photo book to compare with the Bechers’ method.

Anonymous sculptors

For the Bechers, nineteenth-century industrial structures were “anonymous sculptures”. Participants rebuild one and photograph it with a reflex camera, lights and tripod, like the Bechers: frontal images, made for comparison.

A new programme will accompany the next exhibition and will be published on this page. Get it by newsletter

Families

An adult and two children looking closely at a large backlit photograph by Jeff Wall

Family Tour Day

During exhibitions, every Sunday afternoon: a guided tour of the exhibition, a workshop for children and adults together, a snack and an animated film from the MAST.CineKids series, in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna. Free, with booking.

Programme of the latest edition, devoted to the Becher exhibition

14.45: Meet at the Gallery desk, level 1
15.00: Tour of the exhibition in the MAST.Galleries
15.30: Workshop in MAST.Club
16.30: Snack in MAST.Caffetteria
17.00: Animated film in MAST.Auditorium, open to all with booking

Up to 15 children aged 6 to 11, each with a parent or accompanying adult.

Companies and young people: MAST.Academy

The word ACADEMY in raised black letters on a white wall

The Academy occupies a whole wing of MAST, on level 2, with eight classrooms of different sizes. Its activities on technology and innovation are aimed at young people, schools, companies and Coesia employees, in partnership with institutions and other organisations.

For companies and Coesia employees, technical training courses on technology and innovation.

3–10 July 2026: Summer School 2026 · A week on the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and Cyberworld
2026: Expeditions 2026 · School-to-work training for third-year upper secondary students, with the Coesia Group and the Regional School Office: about 80 hours on innovation in the mechanical industry
2025: Summer School 2025 · The previous edition

For students and young photographers

For Foto/Industria 2025, together with the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna and in collaboration with PhMuseum, a series of workshops on storytelling, editing, publishing and photographic languages.

19.11.2025: L’editing fotografico · Giuseppe Oliverio · Accademia di Belle Arti
24.11.2025: Staging Authenticity · Max Pinckers · MAST.Academy
26.11.2025: Personality before Portfolio · Erik Kessels · Accademia di Belle Arti
02.12.2025: L’editoria fotografica · Giuseppe Oliverio · Accademia di Belle Arti

Early childhood: Nido Scuola

The MAST Nido Scuola building with its colourful louvred facade

Open since 2012, the MAST Nido Scuola welcomes children from 3 months to 6 years: the children of Coesia employees and, in a small share, children from the city. Its educational approach, developed in partnership with Reggio Children, Cooperativa Cadiai and Cooperativa Giannino Stoppani, centres on relationships, research and the wellbeing of the child and the community.

Nursery: 3–36 months, three groups
Preschool: 3–5 years, two groups

The Nido among MAST’s spaces

The languages of the Nido Scuola

A sense of beauty: Architecture, furnishings and materials draw on beauty as a cultural and relational element.
Books: Picture books as tools for building young children’s imagination.
Play: Toys that change function and identity and become learning tools.
English: New words and sounds for relating to one another and playing together.
Ateliers: Colour, sound, nature and the vegetable garden.

Past programmes

2026: La scuola dei Becher · Schools and Family Tour Day · Bernd & Hilla Becher. History of a Method
2025: Jeff Wall. Living, Working, Surviving · School programmes, Family Tour Day and accessibility project
2025: Foto/Industria 2025 · Guided tours and workshops at the exhibition venues
2025: Mohamed Bourouissa. Communautés · Guided tours and Family Tour Day
2025: MAST Photography Grant on Industry and Work 2025 · Guided tours and Family Tour Day
2024: Vera Lutter. Spectacular · The camera obscura rebuilt at MAST
2024: Vertigo. Video Scenarios of Rapid Changes · Vertigo Highlights and the Family Tour Day “Moving images”
2023: Andreas Gursky. Visual Spaces of Today
2022: Image Capital · Family Tour Day and online workshops
2021: Ando Gilardi. Fototeca · Tour and workshop for schools
2019–2020: Anthropocene