On June 20 celebrates the United Nations’ World Refugee Day to commemorate the strength, courage, and resilience of millions of refugees. Also Art and Design can contribute to raise the public awareness about refugee’s situations throughout the world. Here are some examples.
La Triennale di Milano and Fondazione Nicola Trussardi: The Restless Earth.
The exhibition, curated by Massimiliano Gioni at Triennale in Milan, explores real and imaginary geographies, reconstructing the odyssey of migrants through personal and collective tales of exodus. Its title from a collection of poems by Édouard Glissant, a Caribbean writer who probed the question of how different cultures can coexist. The exhibition shares in Glissant’s project—a pressing and necessary one that tries to describe this unstable and agitated present as a polyphony of voices and narratives. Through the works of more than sixty artists from more than forty countries—such as Albania, Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Ghana, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, and Turkey—and with historical documents and objects of material culture, this exhibition charts both experiences and perceptions of migration and the current refugee crisis as an epoch-making transformation that is reframing contemporary history, geography, and culture.
The Restless Earth focuses in particular on how artists bear witness to historic events, and how art can describe social and political change in the first person.
(Francis Alÿs in collaboration with Julien Devaux, Felix Blume, Ivan Boccara, Abbas Benheim, Fundaciéon Montenmedio Arte, and children of Tanger and Tarifa / Don’t Cross the Bridge Before You Get to the River, Strait of Gibraltar, 2008 / Courtesy Francis Alÿs and David Zwirner, New York/London).
Moroso supports Achilleas Souras in Milan and Olafur Eliasson at 57th Biennale di Venezia.
“SOS – Save Our Souls” by Achilleas Souras in Milan.
On the occasion of Salone del Mobile, Moroso hosted in its showroom “SOS Save Our Souls” by Achilleas Souras. This installation of great political-social impact is built around the life jackets discarded by refugees on Greece’s shores. The work fuses social engagement with the practical aim of extending protection from water to land. The young Achilleas is repurposing life jackets that saved refugees on the sea to shelter them on land.
Green light – An artistic workshop by Olafur Eliasson at 57th Venice Biennale Art.
Green Light – An Artistic Workshop is a project by the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson in association with Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary of Vienna (TBA21). The project was created in response to the current problems caused by migration and mass displacements. Moroso’s contribution to the project was to develop some of the furnishings in the workshop space. The workshop will be held throughout the period of Viva Arte Viva, the 57th Venice Biennale, from 13 May to 26 November 2017. The geometric Green Light tables and shelves were designed by Eliasson’s studio especially for the workshop and produced by Moroso.
(Photo Credit © Damir Zizic)