Social Impact is an Art Exhibition

Michelangelo Pistoletto, Yuval Avital, Thierry Dana, Kids' Guernica, Art4Impact

Vernissage: 20 September 2019 / 18h00
Exhibition: 20 September - 9 October 2019, Monday to Friday, 8h00-18h00

Peace means to live and create a sustainable life around us, to respect the different people and environments we live in. Reflecting on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals as set forth in the 2030 United Nations Agenda, International School of Geneva students were asked to select and reflect on one goal that for them is fundamental and functional to peace, and represent it visually. The representation and integration of the chosen goals will give birth to the Ecolint Third Paradise for Peace symbol of Michelangelo Pistoletto. As part of a collaboration between the Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte and its Third Paradise project, and the international children’s art project Kids’ Guernica, the three most cooperatively created and significant canvases will be exhibited at the Centre des arts.

In parallel, students will work in small groups to experiment with different ways of creating art with a social impact. The workshops will be organised alongside the Anouk Foundation, whose team of artists focuses on SDG 3 “Health and Wellbeing” by painting therapeutic murals to improve the wellbeing of patients, residents, families and staff in institutions (hospitals, children’s homes, homes for the elderly, detention centres, etc.) the world over. In line with Anouk Foundation’s mission of “brightening lives”, students will be encouraged to focus on three main area of action: refugees, elderly people, and hospitalised children, as part of an Art4Impact challenge.

Among the artwork exhibited will be Kids’ Guernica international, movable canvases from around the world, Art4Impact artwork produced by students from international and public schools in the Geneva area, as well as the installation for loudspeakers, sonic grains and ventilators, Mediterranean altar n.1, in dialogue with the sonic and social sculpture, The Rattles Garden: Mediterranean Sonic Grains, by the international artist Yuval Avital, with the support of the Third Paradise Project, sponsored by the bio social company, Mulinum, a mill graining ancient types of wheat, that is defining a sustainable model of socioeconomic development in the South of Italy. Photographer Thierry Dana will also exhibit "Être et Avoir", an exhibition supported by the Hospice général showcasing some of the personal belongings that asylum seekers managed to take with them as they fled their countries.

This project is a collaboration between the Centre des arts, the University of Geneva - Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, the Fondazione Pistoletto, Kids’ Guernica, the Anouk Foundation, and the UNHCR.