Les traversantes
Les Traversantes, a mentorship program for women artists.
A sale of iconic jewellery belonging to Claudia Cardinale is held by the auction house Christie’s, Paris, in June 2026. The actress’s family wants to honor the Fondazione, Claudia Cardinale’s final core commitment, in donating a portion of the proceeds from this sale to launch the program Les Traversantes.
“My mother is part of the history of cinema, as much as she is part of my intimate life. Today I carry her name with pride, as well as the Fondazione we created together through a matrilineal transmission. The sale of her jewellery will naturally help support women artists in their creative journeys, in order to perpetuate the energy that Claudia infused into the Fondazione.” Claudia Squitieri, president of the Fondazione.
Les Traversantes is a new international mentorship program from the Fondazione, for women whose artistic practices experiment at the intersection of cinema and visual arts. It will aim to pair an established artist with an emerging one in order to foster mutual inspiration and exchange.
Aware of the growing precarity affecting the arts sector—one that impacts women even more acutely—the Fondazione, through Les Traversantes, seeks to provide women artists with a creative environment tailored to their specific needs in research, production, and dissemination. The program is designed to offer emerging artists a comprehensive experience that enables them to make a significant step forward in the professional development of their practice, while giving mentor artists, at the heart of their careers, the opportunity to devote time to focused research and creation, free from the demands of everyday life and enriched by a meaningful artistic exchange. Each residency is conceived and developed on a bespoke basis, with the intention of engaging local audiences through creative workshops, encounters, and events that enrich the program and anchor it within a living territory shaped by those who inhabit it.
These artist duos, will be selected by an artistic committee and welcomed in residency for several months to develop connections and reflections between their respective artistic projects. Fondazione Claudia Cardinale will support each duo in nurturing possibilities for hybridization and experimentation between their practices, while also encouraging dialogue around each artist’s trajectory and concerns. The program thus places care, generosity, and intergenerational exchange at its core, as well as production and dissemination of artwork.
