07-25-2018 • Events
Turin is first ambassador city for the 17 sustainable development goals set by the United Nations.
Presented at the Sustainable Development Festival, the “TOward 2030” What Are You Doing?” project promoted by the City of Turin and Lavazza transforms the Global Goals of the United Nations into 17 works of street art. The first wall, by street artist Vesod, is dedicated to Goal 4 - Quality Education, and establishes a dialogue with the Enaudi University Campus.
Turin, April 24, 2018 – TOward 2030. Turin toward 2030. The Piedmont regional capital has its sights set on 2030, the deadline established by the UN to transform the planet into a more sustainable place, and is now the world’s first ambassador city of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations.
Against this backdrop, today saw the launch of TOward 2030. What Are You Doing?, the Street Art initiative promoted by the City of Turin and Lavazza that talks about sustainability and that by the end of 2019 will turn the entire city, from the centre to the outskirts, into an amplifier of the 17 Goals set by the United Nations. That’s right, street art wants to use its universal language to shake people up and get them to act, which is why it has decided to ask the public, passersby and tourists a question that is as direct as it is provocative - What are you doing? - to remind everyone that 2030 is just around the corner, but that the road to protecting the planet is still all uphill.
“This initiative combines two strategic aspects of our Administration’s policy: our strong commitment to the environment and a focus on culture as an engine of urban regeneration. It is a cause of great satisfaction for us to be the first city in the world to adopt the 17 Goals of the United Nations, interpreting them in the form of real projects in the local area,” said Mayor of Turin Chiara Appendino. “It is a project that can be replicated and one we hope will ‘infect’ other cities, encouraging them to make their own contribution and reasserting the need to change course if we want to save the planet”.
The first TOward 2030 wall is dedicated to Goal 4 - Quality Education and was presented today at the Sustainable Development Festival, in the framework of the nationwide “Generazione 2030” event organized by Alleanza Italiana per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile (Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development, ASviS), by Lavazza and by the Agnelli Foundation in the event space at the Nuvola Lavazza.
“TOward 2030 is a marriage of art and sustainability that colours the walls of Turin with positive messages of responsible commitment and brings a contemporary pop perspective to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, in the form of 17 works of urban art that shows how innovative our city can be in raising awareness about these issues,” commented Francesca Lavazza, Lavazza Member of the Board. “We are filled with enthusiasm today for the official presentation of the first wall in this innovative Street Art project, which Lavazza has been instrumental in promoting with Turin Municipal Council. It speaks the immediate and universal language of street art in order to encourage young people in particular, to make a stand in a virtuous revolution. In this way, after the 17 portraits of sustainability ambassadors shot by photographer Platon for the 2018 Lavazza Calendar, the entire city of Turin acts as a megaphone to remind us how urgent it is to transform the planet into a more sustainable place”.
The first work in TOward 2030 is by Vesod, the internationally known street artist from Turin. Entitled “4Education: the Perfect Circle”, it draws attention to the universal right to quality education (Goal 4) and has been symbolically painted on the wall of the Luigi Enaudi University Campus (in Viale Ottavio Mario Mai). Vesod uses his signature style, which pays tribute to the futurist tradition as well as referencing fine Renaissance art, to portray a special life cycle in which man, nature and knowledge live in balance, growing together. “I wanted to put the emphasis on educating people about sustainability,” explained Vesod, “and on the fact that everyone has the right to quality education, which is essential to improve people’s lives. Man is the tree in my work and the library, which symbolizes knowledge, is nature. Because men, nature and knowledge can create a virtuous circle together. And then, of course, man has learned how to turn trees into paper and paper into books, which are the main tool for sharing knowledge”.
By the end of 2019, the TOward 2030. What Are You Doing? project will transform 17 locations in Turin into 17 works of urban art, enabling street artists from Turin, Italy as a whole and the rest of the world to offer their own interpretations of one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations. The initiative’s Selection Committee is made up of ASviS spokesperson Enrico Giovannini, Francesca Lavazza, Armando Testa Executive Creative Director Michele Mariani, and philosopher, scholar, curator and art critic Roberto Mastroianni. Also contributing to the project are three collectives based in the city: Il Cerchio e le Gocce, Monkeys’ Evolution and Truly Design.
The TOward 2030 project continues Lavazza’s commitment to spreading the word about the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), not least through the power and democracy of art. As does the 2018 Lavazza Calendar “2030 What Are You Doing?”, which through Platon’s photographs makes people aware of the commitment of the 17 sustainability ambassadors (including chef Massimo Bottura, American actor Jeremy Renner, champion of the oceans Alexandra Cousteau, tennis champion Andre Agassi and Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini) to achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
This new project confirms Turin’s traditional affinity for street art. On the back of initiatives promoted by the City of Turin like MurArte, PicTurin, NizzArt and B.Art, a significant number of works are now spread across the local area and form the subject of guided tours, supporting a form of cultural tourism that is showing increasing interest in Turin’s heritage of contemporary art. TOward 2030 is the first strategic stage in the Torino Creativa initiative, a wide-ranging project to support culture and emerging creativity that has been seized on as an opportunity to revitalize the local area, through its ability to generate a new vision and symbols that in turn produce identity, a sense of belonging and opportunities for social growth.
