Fuori Fase APS is a social and cultural promotion association legally based in Lecce. Since 2026, it has been affiliated with AICS (Associazione Italiana Cultura e Sport).

The association is the creator and founder of FASE – Festival di Arti Visive a Sud Est (Southeast Visual Arts Festival), an
integrated visual arts festival held in Otranto and Porto Badisco since 2024. The first seed of Fuori Fase was planted in August 2012 with the project “Dodici mesi Senza Estate” (Twelve Months Without Summer), which involved pasting giant portraits of Otranto’s inhabitants on the city walls, in collaboration with the Inside Out Project and inspired by the street
artist JR. After 12 years of fermentation, Fuori Fase APS was born with greater vision and awareness, aiming to embark on a path of identity reconstruction and self-recognition within a broader horizon, through art and culture.

We are driven by a deep love for our roots and a sense of restlessness regarding what a frantic modernity risks making us lose forever, starting with the sense of community. The transformation of Otranto in the third millennium has called for a reflection on our bond with this land, the city, and its people—a comparison that fosters a desire to fill a void with a look toward the future.

Fuori Fase imagines a territory no longer meant for consumption, but to be lived and breathed; a city that opens up new spaces for fresh lifeblood, welcoming people and ideas. With the FASE project, the association wishes to reflect together with the community on the meaning of our lives, our work, our choices, and our present, while filling our future with new meaning. We want to promote culture—an opportunity and perhaps a countercurrent challenge in this historical period, but one that does not frighten us.