Performance and site-specific installation by Emmanuele Panzarini
Saturday, 17 / Sunday, 18 October – h 10.00 am / 8.00 pm
Fortezza da Basso, Outside Spadolini Pavilion
Preserve Green is an artwork that will take place at the entrance of the Spadolini pavilion(Fortezza da Basso). In the past, the area housed a green lawn that decorated the square and “tinged” all the surrounding space. Today the space is covered by small stones that make the area dark with no shade and vitality. The installation intends to remind the visual atmosphere before the removal of the grass. By using a simple element such as the balloon, with its precarious nature, the artist wants to emphasize that the green is a delicate element that must be safeguarded and protected.
During the X Florence Biennale, on Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 October, thanks to the synergy with Treedom – Florentine reality that allows businesses and individuals to plant trees to offset their CO2 emissions – visitors will be able to buy the balloons, inflate and place them into the artwork with with the assistance of the artist. The proceeds will be used by Treedom, in partnership with IRAD (Institut de Recherche Agricole pour le Développement), for the purchase of cocoa trees in Cameroon, that will be planted in lands ravaged by illegal logging involving several villages of Central Region.
The artwork has been possible thanks to the support of Balloon Express, a company in Florence, leader in Italy in creating and delivering professional products for parties.
Follow the event on social networks with the hashtag #PreserveGreen #FlorenceBiennale
(photo and text courtesy the artist)
Information about the project of Treedom in Cameroon
Treedom promotes agroforestry projects, with the goal to produce multiple environmental benefits. Planting new trees leads to:
- an increase in the absorption of CO2 for combating global warming and the excesses of the greenhouse effect,
- combating deforestation, environmental degradation, soil erosion and desertification,
- contributing to the protection of biodiversity,
- an improvement in soil fertility,
- stabilizing the hydrogeological zones of the project, thus avoiding landslides and mudslides.
Treedom operates in the developing countries of the world to combine its environmental mission with a social mission. Projects in Africa, South America and the rest of the world are personally carried out by the local population: individual farmers or small cooperatives of farmers receive a financial contribution for the planting of new trees.
Through the active involvement of the whole local community, the projects allow the community to get extraordinary results in terms of empowerment. This way, virtuous behaviors are induced for the respect and protection of natural resources, and also micro-enterprise initiatives aimed at enhancing the forests, their fruits and the crop affiliates.
Therefore, there are green projects aimed at not only helping the environment, but also to help those in need to defeat the war on poverty.
In Cameroon, nearly half of the population lives in rural districts conducting farming, pastoral and forestry activities. Moreover, poverty profiles analysis show that a rural phenomenon is beginning in Cameroon. For these reasons, IRAD projects are focused on developing new technologies to improve food security and to reduce the resources scarcity for local farmers all over the country.
IRAD has therefore decided to collaborate with Treedom to realize a project for planting cacao trees with the active participation of many villages of the Central Region.
IRAD has developed four guidelines consistent with its objectives:
- Developing high yelding food crop varieties cultivated in the country;
- Finding solutions to defeat food crops diseases and parasites;
- Improving agricultural systems based food crops;
- Developing foodstuff transformation techniques to add value and enhance the quality of food crops in order to increase the revenues of agricultural smallholders.
