MILAN, Italy – Three artists in a dialogue around the value of collaboration between people, organisations and ideas: the Lavazza Calendar 2024 is a choral project by African photographers Thandiwe Muriu (Kenya), Daniel Obasi (Nigeria) and Aart Verrips (South Africa) under the creative direction of Armando Testa Agency.
A Calendar that describes and promotes the concept of partnership in every sense, starting from the ability to be open-minded towards others – a reference to the Lavazza Calendar 2023 Yes, We’re Open – and going further to explore the beauty of collaboration, cross-contamination and joining forces based on mutual respect to create something much bigger: More than Us.
The physical and imaginary space occupied by the art project is Africa, the home of the original coffee bean – in the Kafa Region (in Ethiopia) – and several of the sustainable development projects organised by the non-profit Giuseppe e Pericle Lavazza Foundation – established in 2004 and now active with 33 projects on three continents – but also a land of harmony, one that’s full of energy, experimentation and drive inspired by its extraordinary cultural vitality and the diverse communities who live there.
“Over the years, we have learnt to work together and share objectives, efforts and achievements. Aware that alone we go fast, but together we go further. Through the energy of Africa, the cradle of coffee, we want to reaffirm the Lavazza Foundation’s true values and celebrate this intertwining of hands, talents, stories and experiences.
Multiple voices singing in unison. Because in the family, as well as in the company, we know that everyone counts, but more importantly, we have learnt to always count on one another.” Explains Francesca Lavazza, Lavazza Group Board Member, in the introduction to the Calendar.
In More than Us, photography is free to express itself in new ways, unchained from stereotypes and conventional visual wisdom, giving a voice to original interpretations that spring from the diversity of the artists’ stories and reminding us that Africa is not a singularity, but an expression of cultural richness and variety.
It can be seen in Thandiwe Muriu’s Camo series, where the protagonists stand out but blend into the backgrounds and vivid patterns of traditional fabrics, and it’s also there in the mellow, surrealist world of Daniel Obasi, who urges us to reflect on the concepts of activism, politics and human relations, as well as in the crisp, pared-down aesthetic of Aart Verrips, who is always searching for unconventional faces and new ideas of beauty.
Each photographer captured four images, drawing inspiration from the Lavazza Foundation’s sustainable development projects and the values of More Responsibility, More Sustainability, More Innovation and More Inspiration shared by Lavazza Group, its brands and the associations it works with to support the economic and social growth of coffee-producing communities and to protect the environment.
In this way, the Calendar also celebrates the collective effort to achieve the Group’s four priority Sustainable Development Goals in the framework of the UN 2030 Agenda – Goal 5: Gender Equality, Goal 8: Decent work and economic growth, Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production, Goal 13: Climate action – in the spirit of collaboration of Goal 17: Partnerships for the goals.
According to Michele Mariani, Executive Creative Director at Armando Testa Group, which has supervised creative direction for the Calendar right from the outset, “The Lavazza Calendar 2024 celebrates the precious value of the collaboration.
And it does so by taking advantage of all the pulsating energy and creative vitality in the African continent. This energy flows through and is nourished by the inexhaustible resource of cultural diversity.
Tackling complex challenges requires the sharing of ideas, talent and respect. And the best ideas are the ones that spring from exchange and contamination, because as we all know, none of us is as clever as all of us put together.”
The Calendar project’s guiding messages also resonate through the involvement of three ambassadors, three personalities who are committed to and active in social projects, and who believe in the idea of collaboration expressed by More than Us:
- Somali model, author and actress Waris Dirie, a longstanding advocate against female genital mutilation;
- Nobel Prize winner Denis Mukwege, the world-renowned gynaecological surgeon and founder of the Panzi Hospital in Bakavu, Democratic Republic of Congo, with which Lavazza Foundation collaborates;
- South African activist Zulaikha Patel, who has focused media attention on the problem of racism in post-apartheid South Africa and was a laureate of the Young Activist Summit 2022.
The More than Us concept will continue to inspire Lavazza in 2024, as the leitmotiv of initiatives organised to pay tribute to the 20th anniversary of the Giuseppe e Pericle Lavazza Foundation.
The Calendar provides a preview of this anniversary by presenting a visual interpretation of the Foundation’s projects as seen by the photographers.
The landing page, https://www.lavazza.com/en/calendar-2024, developed with the creative direction of Armando Testa Group’s digital team and a series of podcasts produced by Chora Media on the main streaming platforms provide more information about the Lavazza Calendar 2024 project and its protagonists’ stories and visions.
“We are very pleased to work with Lavazza on this narration of the 2024 Calendar” – says Mario Calabresi, Chora CEO and Editor in Chief – “Through the power of the podcast, images become spoken content.
A window on the world, with the voices and stories of the photographers behind the images.”
20 years of the non-profit Giuseppe e Pericle Lavazza Foundation
In 2004, Lavazza set up the non-profit Giuseppe e Pericle Lavazza Foundation to coordinate and manage social, environmental and economic projects in coffee-producing communities worldwide. Today, the Foundation supports and finances 33 projects in 20 countries across three continents, benefiting almost 190,000 coffee growers.
Through the Foundation, Lavazza Group aims to turn coffee into a huge opportunity for producer countries: a high-quality product for prosperous communities that respect and protect the environment in the framework of long-term, sustainable social and economic development.
The projects supported aim to improve coffee yield and quality, at the same time as promoting entrepreneurship among growers and improving their living standards. The route taken by the Foundation is to support the autonomy of local communities by valuing women’s work and involving the new generations, accompanied by the sharing of good agricultural practices and the introduction of technological tools designed to counter the effects of climate change.
The Foundation’s work also aims to diversify production as a way of combating soil impoverishment, and to support reforestation, which is a vital process in restoring the health of the ecosystem.
#moresustainability
More than Us taps into the collaborative approach that has always been a signature feature of the Lavazza Foundation: participation in multistakeholder organisations with a focus on sustainability, projects launched as public-private partnerships, and cooperation with other players, often in a pre-competitive framework.
The partners are NGOs, international agencies, local entities, traders and coffee roasters that work in their home areas and in close contact with coffee-producing communities, such as those referred to in the Lavazza Calendar 2024: Save the Children, Sawa World, Verdad y Vida, Cesvi, Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung, Fundación Carcafe, World Coffee Research, X-Farm, Qima Foundation, Panzi Foundation.
With this collaborative approach, the knowledge gained in the field through the Foundation also helps steer Lavazza Group strategic thinking towards sustainability. #moreinnovation
More than Us means being inspired by the Group’s Four Values, and specifically the sense of Responsibility towards the communities in which the Group operates, which is reflected in the company’s Community Care programme in areas where its associated companies and factories are located and, since 2004, with the projects organised by the non-profit Giuseppe e Pericle Lavazza Foundation in coffee-producing countries. #moreresponsibility #moreinspiration
To learn more: The non-profit Giuseppe e Pericle Lavazza Foundation has published its first Corporate Social Responsibility Report, which is available online on the Foundation’s website: www.fondazionelavazza.com/en
