Victoria Gandini
Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and what it is that you do?
“My name is Victoria Gandini. I was born in Argentina, a country in the far south of the world. I’ve lived here my whole life, and I love it. As a cultural worker, I integrate my work as a musician and writer with supporting artists, organizations, and public and private institutions in designing and implementing socio-cultural projects.
In 2012, I began working in artistic education institutions with the goal of improving their integration within the wider community. At the Music Department at the National University of the Arts where I worked until 2023, I created various musical ensembles with hospitalized children, mental health patients, school communities, groups of women who are victims of gender-based violence, and people deprived of their liberty in prisons.
The need to share the collective experience of these projects led me to apply for the Fulbright FNA Scholarship in Art and Social Transformation, which I was awarded in 2017. This allowed me to train with Cindy Cohen (IMPACT Senior Fellow) at Brandeis University for four months. In 2019, I published the book Music, What For? Music, University, and Social Transformation through the publishing house of the Department of Musical Arts at UNA.
As cultural manager, I have produced experimental music festivals and concert series featuring non-mainstream music, focusing on the reimagining of spaces and programming based on diversity, both in Argentina and Chile.
I am currently a professor, and teach at the National University of the Arts, the National University of San Martín, the National University of Misiones, and various other universities in Argentina and Latin America, leading courses in the fields of communication and cultural policies.
In my music, I explore different genres, such as experimental songs and music for the performing arts. In 2016, I released my first EP, La mujer búho, followed by Todos los mundos (2020–2021). I composed the original music for the plays No dispares Boris by Román Podolsky, and I Can Get Lost Again and If Memory Does Not Fail Me by Gonzalo López López, which premiered in Madrid in February 2023.
My first novel was published by Larria Ediciones in November 2024. This novel was supported by the 2021 Creation Grant from the National Arts Fund (Argentina), which enabled me to participate in a playwriting clinic with Argentine playwright Mauricio Kartun.
Currently, I prioritize my work as a consultant, supporting artists, organizations, and public and private institutions in the design and realization of artistic projects that aim, in some way, to positively transform reality.”
What drew you to IMPACT and its work on arts, culture, and conflict transformation?
“The arts in general and music in particular have been part of my life since I was a girl. I have played the piano since the age of eight until today. There were however two defining moments that did modify my conception of the arts as well as the way I used to think about myself.
When I was 15 years old, my horseback riding teacher invited me to be her assistant in her horse therapy classes for children suffering from autism and other disorders. Back then, I too used to be a rather silent and reserved person. Yet, letting myself be guided by intuition, I discovered that singing with – and for – these children would be my way to build bridges between them and myself. That took me by surprise; for I then also discovered that singing was a way of transforming myself, too, and to evolve and befriend my own voice. Hence, the fact that music would be in my life continuously ensured that there were no holes to fall into; it also gave me greater freedom to move on. Yes, there was suffering from being enclosed in non-verbal communication, but music turned out to be the vehicle to transit this suffering. The freedom we succeeded providing these children with, by making their previously mute voices sing, thus became my own liberation.
Many years later, when studying at university, I was invited to partake in an academic volunteer program. They asked me to design and teach workshops on artistic education for children of marginalized neighborhoods in the South side of Buenos Aires. Since I had never before worked in a context of such characteristics and complexity, I thought I would set out from shared turf, and make collective composing of songs the vector of my workshops. We all, facilitators and children alike, would write – with irony, humor and bluntness – about our very lives, our collective identity and the ugly things that bothered us, including violence, that otherwise might have been impossible to address and articulate. Thus I once more found music to be a space of collective construction and self appreciation.
Both in horse therapy and this volunteer work, we often experienced that the children would come to our workshops singing the songs we had created in the previous week. Music can provide a sheltered space in our life that we never lose access to.
That was the beginning of a path I will follow throughout my life, but it was in 2016 when a thinker whom I deeply admire, Carmen Oleachea (former IMPACT Board Member), recommended that I get to know the work of some of the current members of IMPACT. From there, I also met Cindy Cohen (IMPACT Senior Fellow) and decided to apply for the Fullbright scholarship in order to train with her at Brandeis University. That experience turned out to be life-changing.
Could you describe for us the most emotionally-impactful creative project that you’ve worked on to date?
“One of the most important moments was conducting a spontaneous ensemble workshop at the Tiburcio Borda Mental Health Hospital in Buenos Aires. We carried out this work with a group of about 25 patients from the Day Hospital, which is a hospital area attended by patients who have already been discharged from in-patient care or who, even if they have never been hospitalized, must attend daily to receive their medication.
During this workshop, I learned things that simply transformed me. On the one hand, the violence generated by mental illnesses due to the many prejudices associated with these conditions. The idea of uselessness, danger, and being “different.” I found that in many cases, the patients seemed to be the health professionals because they demonstrated active, interested, and playful listening, willing to truly understand the person in front of them. In contrast, I found that some professionals could only see what they already had in their own minds. This inability to truly see the other is one of the roots of violence and conflict.
On the other hand, it was incredibly powerful how we all embraced what, for me, is the number one rule of making music: music cannot be made without paying deep attention to what one plays, but it also cannot be made without paying deep attention to what the group is doing. Music dissolves the false dichotomy between the personal and the collective. There must be personal research and desire, but this is not in opposition to the possibility of creating a space for collective development.”
What is one piece of content that profoundly impacted the way you view and/or work in this field?
“It is truly difficult for me to name just one piece. There are works that have impacted me in different ways. On the one hand, the work of Sebastião Salgado, a Brazilian photographer who has not only produced many of the photos that interest me the most but also, together with his wife, has created a lifelong project involving the planting of more than 2 million trees, restoring an ecosystem in Brazil that had been devastated by a mining project.
Also, recently, I was deeply moved by a book I received containing micro-stories written and illustrated by children from La Boca, a neighborhood in the southern part of Buenos Aires, created by the Fundación Casa Rafael. The stories are so brief yet contain so many characters filled with absolute rawness and beauty. It reminded me of everything we humans are capable of when given the opportunity to be creative.
I also always remember the staging of the play Copenhagen by Michael Frayn, which explores a crucial meeting between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in 1941, during World War II, in the Nazi-occupied Danish capital. The play delves into their lives, scientific careers, and the tension between science, politics, and ethics, especially regarding the development of the atomic bomb.
Finally, and most importantly, it is the people I have met during more than 20 years of working in communities who, through their life stories and ways of doing things, have expanded both my mind and my heart.
These works, in their own profound ways, remind me of the enduring power of humanity-our capacity for destruction, yes, but more importantly, our boundless potential for creation, resilience, and profound beauty in the face of overwhelming darkness.
What advice would you give your past self, knowing what you know now, what would it be?
“If I could give myself one piece of advice 20 years ago, I would tell myself to pay more attention to the things that truly matter and to focus more deeply on each of them. I would understand that, while it is essential to manage the energy needed to handle daily responsibilities, the most important thing is to always keep alive the warmth of the creative and unique energy present in almost every moment of life. It doesn’t have to be grand or necessarily artistic situations; creativity is found in the everyday, and it is that spark that gives meaning and richness to our experience.”