VENICE, Italy – On April 22, to mark Earth Day and the opening of the 59th Venice Art Biennale, Lavazza Group with #EmbracingVenice presents the new stage in world-touring Land Art project BeyondWalls by Saype. The public will be able to admire on April 22 Saype’s gigantic artwork from the Torre di Porta Nuova in the Arsenale Nord area, the venue for the French-Swiss artist’s second solo exhibition after Turin, with photographs, videos and installation details about the Beyond Walls project and some of its 12 stages around the world since 2019, symbolically creating the largest human chain ever and highlighting the importance of staying together to overcome all the challenges of our time.
On Earth Day, Lavazza Group wants to draw attention to a particularly topical issue: the fragility of life on earth and human responsibility towards our fellow human beings, other forms of life and the planet we have the privilege to live on.
It will do this through a visually striking but ephemeral artwork, designed to disappear in a matter of days and set in Venice, the city that is the ultimate symbol of art and human creativity but also of the complex relationship between Man and Nature, Two hands reach out and clasp each other in an expression of confidence and mutual help: this is the central image of a monumental work painted on grass using biodegradable pigments, invented by the artist himself, and installed on a classic Venetian “pontoon”, that daily crosses the canals, to allow the city to host Beyond Walls, “the largest human chain in history”, a project taken to various symbolic locations in countries around the world (www.saype-artiste.com).
“We have given this project our full backing to continue along the path we set out on many years ago, with the aim of giving voice to the issues raised by sustainability through art and photography.” – Lavazza Group Board Member Francesca Lavazza said.
“The art of Saype perfectly embodies our values and is the ideal testimonial for the increasingly close relationship between the visual arts and sustainability. In the spirit of our Goal Zero, we have chosen Earth Day to reawaken our collective consciousness about the delicate balance between man and the natural environment, and about the need to take action to encourage change. With the Venice Art Biennial just around the corner, we want to offer the world a visual synthesis that integrates Saype’s work into this most iconic of cities, with which we have longstanding ties through partnerships and cultural projects”.
Goal Zero, created by Lavazza, joins the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and aspires to spread the message of the 2030 Agenda to as broad an audience as possible, as well as guiding Group projects for some years now to raise awareness about sustainability issues.
Lavazza Group is a longstanding supporter of Saype, with whom it shares the values of inclusion, solidarity and the desire to protect an environment increasingly at risk.
An artistic combination centred on a faith in responsible art that aims to encourage reflection on the role we all have to play in preserving the world we live in. This is accompanied by a real-world commitment that on the one hand the artist applies to his work, and on the other the Group realises by acting as a responsible business on an everyday basis and through its Foundation, guided by the corporate purpose of “Awakening a better world every morning”.
“After traveling for 3 years around the world with Beyond Walls project, I am happy that this emblematic city will be part of it. City of history and confluence of art, Venice reflects our challenges of climate change. In this sense, working hand in hand with respect for nature is the only way to overcome together the failures of the past and create a bright future”. – said Saype – “Being able to bring the hands of Beyond Walls through the canals for the Venice Biennale is an opportunity for me to send a beautiful message of optimism to the whole world. Earth Day is the perfect time to remind us that ecology must be at the heart of our concerns, and I am proud to be able to send this message with Lavazza which is a historical partner in my adventure as an artist and with whom, we are trying to move forward in a more sustainable world.”
The partnership between Lavazza Group, Saype and the Venice Pavilion takes concrete form with the Venice Pavilion Fuori Padiglione events, a series of five encounters based on deeply shared goals.
This with the aim of making people think responsibly about the future and about pressing social and environmental issues, with a view to limiting the devastating impact of climate change that threatens unique locations like Venice and highly vulnerable crops like coffee.
The event with Saype is part of the Venice Pavilion FPV programme curated by Giovanna Zabotti, which this year will be entitled “Alloro” [Bay Laurel], testifying to the dialogue that is possible between Art and Nature and of which Saype’s work is a concrete example.
“Man and nature: this symbiotic relationship has gone hand in hand in recent decades with growing respect for the dynamics of environmental sustainability, animal care, and the protection of all living beings. It is a form of heightened ecological consciousness that has evolved and started to express itself creatively through art.
In fact, it represents a new frontier for creativity, where the lines are blurred between art, science and communication. This is where the connection between “Alloro” and the works of Saype lies: nature becomes central to the artwork, a nature that transforms and mutates, changing colour and form and taking on a new life, as do we humans who live in it.” – said Giovanna Zabotti, curator of the Venice Pavilion.
“In parallel, nature, experimentation, art and the future will be the themes running through all the Fuori Padiglione events, in which young people and the hope they represent will play a fundamental role.
The partnership with Lavazza Group is a fortunate example of the increasingly close relationship between nature and art, and I am particularly happy with the collaboration we have established.”
