The Circle
You are the best at what you do,
and you please everyone.
Except yourself.
> A programme to shape your own direction.
> Four online sessions in February 2027.
> Two days in Rome, 4–5 March.
> A follow-up session in early April.
> Applications close 15 January.
> Led by Marco Bassan.
Is the Circle right for you?
For people who have already built something serious: a practice, a studio, a company, a business. Founders, owners and senior professionals, in any field, from a design studio to an engineering company.
When you have succeeded, and success is no longer enough.
Serve the client. Be impeccable. Do not disappoint. Keep your own picture for later. Those terms were probably true when you accepted them, which is exactly why they held.
YOU NAILED YOUR BUSINESS
Clients come back. Nobody argues about your competence. By any outside measure, you have built a success.
FULFILLING OTHERS' NEEDS
Every brief you have answered brilliantly belonged to somebody else: a client, a partner, a company. Nobody ever asked you yours.
Something in you never went quiet
You assumed it would, with enough work and enough success. It has kept asking, at intervals, for years, with nothing to show for itself.
Apply if you are
Apply if you are
Repositioning your work and need a direction you can defend
Sitting on something of your own that keeps getting postponed
Ready for peer-level scrutiny
At the beginning and looking for clients
Looking for a technique, a framework or a certificate
Looking for therapy, or help with something you are going through
WHAT'S THE CIRCLE
You built your business by answering other people's briefs.
The Circle is where you finally work on your own.
A month of attention on the one question that is yours.
Before we start
Late January
Your Circle Diagnostic, prepared from your application and shared before the first session.
4 sessions online
Mondays through February
Explore vision, inner and outer worlds, mythobiography, weak signals and your personal utopia.
2 days in Rome
4–5 March
Turn your vision into a tangible proposal through practical work, dialogue and encounters with visionaries.
You leave with a clear intention, a tangible proposal and a plan to bring it into the world.
The Return
Early April
A 90-minute group session, one month later, to share what you have put into the world, what you have learned and what needs to happen next.
Can Visionary Thinking be learned?
For more than ten years at Spazio Taverna we have worked with artists the way a curator does: listening, selecting, connecting their work with their urgency, their time and their public. The Circle gives the same attention to people who run businesses.
A curatorial approach to bring together your inner world and the world outside, until they make sense.
URGENCY
The question, desire or tension that makes a project necessary. Telling apart what is truly yours from what is expected of you.
Leads to: an urgency named in your own words.
What moves you, and why now?
FORESIGHT
Reading the signals and contradictions of the present, starting from the artworks that register them first.
Leads to: a field of possibilities to act on.
What is emerging, and what does it make possible?
SENSEMAKING
Bringing together what moves you and what is emerging around you, and questioning the mental models that worked until now.
Leads to: a direction that orients your decisions.
What does it mean for you?
Rome is a city where inner visions have become eternal.
Emperors, popes, artists and thinkers have turned personal beliefs and ambitions into a shared world, shaping how we see, inhabit and imagine it.
Here, ancient and contemporary life, the sacred and the political, the monumental and the intimate coexist. Every new vision enters a conversation with those that came before it.
In the Renaissance bottega, painters, engineers and scholars worked at the same bench, and a vision could travel from a drawing to a machine to a city. We bring the Circle to Rome to work that way again, alongside people who have made their vision their life’s work.
LOGISTIC MATTERS
€
3,000
Terms
Excluding VAT where applicable. €3,000 upfront or 3 × €1,050. Nothing due at application.
FORMAT
Four online sessions of two hours in February 2027.
Two full days in Rome, 4 and 5 March.
A 90-minute online group follow-up in early April. Everything is in English.
Room
Fifteen is the largest number at which everyone in the room actually gets time.
Admission
By application, followed by a twenty-minute call. You hear back within three days.
CORPORATE
We invoice the company, and in most countries this is a deductible business expense.
INCLUDED
Everything except your flight and your bed.
Four online sessions of two hours, the whole group
Two full days in Rome, in person
Two lunches and one artistic dinner
Transport during the programme
Encounters with visionaries and artists
Not included: Flights and two nights
HOW TO JOIN
01
A short form, around seven minutes, on where you are in your work and what you want to bring into focus. Nothing is due at this stage.
Application
02
We read each application ourselves, considering the question you bring, the stage you are at and whether the Circle can support the work you want to do.
Review
03
Twenty minutes with Marco Bassan to discuss what you want to explore and how the Circle works, with questions running in both directions.
Conversation
04
If there is a fit on both sides, you receive a formal invitation to join the cohort. If there is not, we say so and tell you why.
Confirmation
05
The place is held once the fee is settled, within ten days of the invitation.
Your place
mEET YOUR GUIDE
Marco Bassan
Marco Bassan is a contemporary art curator, educator and founder of the School of Vision. His work connects art, business and education, while his writing explores geopolitics, art and consciousness. With a background in management engineering and doctoral research on art and business, he brings cultural depth and practical thinking to the Circle.
Over the past decade, he has worked with hundreds of visionaries. His work with contemporary artists shaped Visionary Thinking: a curatorial approach that brings the artist's ways of seeing, interpreting and giving form to reality into the work of people and organisations.
School of Vision
School of Vision is Spazio Taverna's research centre, dedicated to studying and teaching Visionary Thinking. Born from years of work alongside contemporary artists, the method helps people recognise what is emerging, relate it to its context and find a form to express it.
Its research and educational programmes connect art, business and the development of an original vision. Its work includes mapping the visions shaping contemporary Rome and delivering workshops for companies and universities.
Authorship cannot be replaced.
What remains scarce is a position that could only have come from you.
Guarantee
Withdrawal
Leave after the first full session and you are refunded, less the value of that session.
The Artifact Guarantee
GuaranteeDo the work and come to Rome. If you leave without a concrete version of what you are building, we keep working one to one until you have one. Up to two sessions of sixty minutes.
Voices from previous editions
Anna
Eleni
Jason
Joana
Giulia
The one that is yours has been asking for years.
APPLY
You have been the best at what you do for a long time, and you have done it by answering questions that belonged to other people.
FAQ
School of Vision is Spazio Taverna's research centre. It studies and teaches Visionary Thinking, a method drawn from how contemporary artists see, interpret and give form to reality.
The Circle is a small-group programme for founders, owners and senior professionals who want to develop their own vision. It combines four online sessions, two days in Rome and a follow-up session, using contemporary art, dialogue and practical work. You leave with a concrete first version of what you want to build.
Marco Bassan is the founder of School of Vision and the director of Spazio Taverna, a curatorial practice in Rome. He trained as a management engineer and has spent fifteen years working with artists, whose entire occupation is having a voice of their own and who therefore lose it in ways that are visible and, after long enough, recognisable. The method behind The Circle comes from that work, applied to people who run businesses.
People who have been running something and are good at it: founders, owners and senior professionals from any sector. Age and company size matter less than this: you have built something real, and it has stopped being enough.
People at the beginning who are looking for clients. People who want a technique, a framework or a certificate. People looking for therapy or help with something they are going through: that help matters, and this is a different room. If it comes up during the programme, we will say so and point you elsewhere.
Through a curatorial approach: listening, selecting and connecting ideas, images and signals. You work with artworks and practical exercises to connect your own questions with the world around you. It is not therapy and not psychological support.
English.
Three to four hours a week through February, including the work between sessions. Then two full days in Rome. Then ninety minutes a month later.
Yes. The two days are what the month before them is for. If you cannot be there on 4 and 5 March, apply for the October cohort instead.
People who run something. Founders of companies large and small, owners of studios and agencies, professionals who have just come out of a long career and are starting their own thing. We select for a room that is level.
Yes. We invoice the company. In most countries this is a deductible business expense; check with your accountant.
We do not book it, and we send recommendations for places within reach of where we work.
No. One cohort, one price, and everyone in the room paid the same. That is deliberate, and both previous editions taught us why.
Yes, up to ten days before the start, subject to our approval, since the room is selected. Any costs arising from the transfer are yours.
A short form, a few questions at a time, about seven minutes. Then twenty minutes with Marco, which is a conversation rather than an interview. Then an answer within three working days, yes or no, with the reason.
No payment at application.
Something already built, a tension that is specific rather than general, something that could become an output, and a willingness to be contradicted.
15 January. The cohort after this one meets in October.
We also develop tailored formats for organisations. Get in touch if that is relevant.
If you need further information, feel free to contact us directly.
