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Performance and site-specific installation - Emmanuele Panzarini
Saturday, 17 - Sunday, 18 October - 10 a.m. / 8 p.m.

Fortezza da Basso, Piazzale Esterno Spadolini Pavilion

Preserve Green is an art installation that will take place in front of the entrance to the Spadolini Pavilion (Fortezza da Basso). In the past, the area contained a green lawn that decorated the square and ‘coloured’ the entire surrounding space. Today, the space is covered with many little stones that render the environment devoid of tone and vitality. The installation therefore wants to remind us of the visual atmosphere before the grass was removed. By using an element as simple as the balloon, with its precarious nature, we want to emphasise how nature is a delicate element that must be preserved and protected.

During the 10th Florence Biennale, on Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 October, thanks to the synergy with Treedom - a Florentine organisation that allows companies and people to plant trees to balance their CO2 emissions - it will be possible to buy balloons, inflate them and place them, with the help of the artist himself, inside the work of art. The proceeds will be made use of by Treedom, in collaboration with IRAD (Institut de Recherche Agricole pour le Développement), for the purchase of cocoa trees in Cameroon on land devastated by illegal logging involving numerous villages in the Central Region.

The work was made possible thanks to the technical support of Balloon Express, a Florence-based company and leader in Italy in the creation and distribution of professional party products.

Follow the event on social media with the hashtags #PreserveGreen #FlorenceBiennale

www.emmanuelepanzarini.it

About Treedom's project in Cameroon

 
Treedom promotes the planting of new trees among fruit species, forest species and endangered species. The planting of new trees allows to

- increase the absorption of CO2 to combat climate change and the excesses of the greenhouse effect;
- counteract deforestation and environmental degradation; and
- contribute to the protection of biodiversity;
- counteract soil erosion and desertification;
- improve soil fertility;
- stabilise the hydro-geological structure of the project areas.

Reforestation projects are developed in rural communities in the global south and in Italy in Libera Terra territories. The projects are personally implemented by the local population (individual farmers or small cooperatives of farmers) who receive an economic contribution for the planting of the trees.

Through the active involvement of the entire local community, the projects achieve extraordinary results in terms of community empowerment. Thus, both virtuous behaviours of respect and protection of natural resources are generated, as well as micro-entrepreneurship initiatives aimed at enhancing the value of forests, their fruits and associated agricultural crops.

All products derived from the trees remain available to the farmers and cooperatives that receive training, work and income thanks to Treedom.

Since just over half of Cameroon's total population is projected to live in rural areas and engage in agricultural, pastoral or forestry activities, and since poverty profile analyses show that the country is in the early stages of a rural phenomenon, IRAD's projects are oriented towards the development of new technologies to improve food security and reduce the lack of resources of local farmers throughout Cameroon.

IRAD has thus decided to carry out a cocoa tree planting project in cooperation with Treedom, involving several villages in the Central Region.

IRAD's four lines of action, consistent with its objectives, are as follows:

- Development of high-yielding varieties of all food crops grown in the country;
- Research on solutions for food crop diseases and pests;
- Improvement of agricultural systems based on food crops;
- Development of food processing techniques to add value and improve the shelf life of food crops in order to increase revenues for farmers.