Herbarium becomes artwork in a green project involving three Italian cities

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the association aMAZElab, Art, Culture, Landscape, Green Island presents The Traveling Herbarium: unpublished works by international artists on the theme “Art and Nature” and vegetation in motion.

The project, conceived for Festivalfilosofia in Modena, intends to be a journey through images articulated over three Italian cities on the occasion of three national and international events: Milano Design Week, Sept. 4/10 (Porta Garibaldi Station | presentation: Monday, Sept. 6 at 12 noon, Atrio Porta Garibaldi Station, Piazza Freud, Milan); Festivaletteratura, Mantua, Sept. 8/12 (Mantova Railway Station); Festivalfilosofia, Modena, Sept. 17-19 (Modena Railway Station). The project will end with an exhibition at the Modena Botanical Garden. The intent is to promote the concept of beauty and train travel, combining cultural subjects and practices, screenings and public exhibitions, in order to raise awareness of pressing issues such as art, society, and landscape.

Unpublished works propose the concept of the herbarium as a work of art and as an eco-design object to be collected. They will be presented on screens in train stations in Milan, Mantua, and Modena. Here the artists’ images will flow in a loop on large screens, while for the final stage, the works will be displayed in a single site-specific exhibition at the Modena Botanical Garden for Festivalfilosofia, inside the Giardini Ducali, already a place of dialogue between art and nature thanks to the presence of the Galleria Civica - Palazzina dei Giardini.

In this context, the images, printed on large format and placed in the greenery of the gardens, will be presented as an original mapping for an ATLAS of the main botanical species that characterize the Mediterranean landscape. “This vegetation, free to roam beyond the borders with spores and seeds in flight, is told through images and drawings by international artists, who through their vision give us back an unprecedented puzzle of botanical, naturalistic and creative forms, in an artistic and scenic outdoor pathway, amid the plants and flowerbeds of public gardens accessible to all,” said Claudia Zanfi, creator of the project and founder of Green Island.

The following are the artists involved: Simone Berti, Fabiana De Barros, Paul Clemence, Judith Cowan, Sergio Leitao, Dorna Lofti, Achilleas Kentonis, Jacopo Natoli, Sabrina Notturno, Piet Oudolf, Vera Pravda, Anne Pellissier, Rossella Pezzino, Mezgeen Rashid, Oliver Musovik, George Salameh, Lorella Salvagni, Vincenzo Zancana, Lois Weinberger, Xurban Collective, Zafos Xagoraris.

The invited artists decided to pay homage to the geographies that the aMAZElab association has traversed in the course of its socio-cultural research, constructing a ’Mediterranean Atlas’ and a ’Balkan Archipelago.

Image: Landscape Atelier. Courtesy Green Island and the artists

Herbarium becomes artwork in a green project involving three Italian cities

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