Operette vegetali, Alice Padovani

MY PROJECT
A multitude of small boxes, similar to ancient herbals. An installation that emphasizes the beauty of the everyday: thin stems, herbs, small wildflowers arranged as precious objects of nature to cherish and preserve to remind us of our fragility. Small perfectly formed plants, full of life, that over the months will dry up leaving only a faded memory of their beauty. However minimal and invisible to us, plants allow us to breathe. My thought is very simple: we cannot survive without a single blade of grass! The vegetation, even the most 'poorly' that grows on roadsides, makes a gift of its own oxygen.

We are living in crowded cities, full of cement, deprived of any memory of nature. We don't notice the poison that surrounds us because we are fatally addicted to it. City dwellers lack vital oxygen to enable them to breathe again, and we need the plants, even the smallest, from the small clovers that grow close to our homes, to the bounty of grasses which make their way with difficulty along the sidewalks and holes in the asphalt. We need to re-classify their petite beauty as ancient scholars, eager to make new discoveries. We have to look at nature with children's eyes and awaken a sense of wonder that makes us bow to the sweet smell of a flower.

This installation, made of buds preserved in glass cases, leaves picked and arranged in symmetrical rows, seeds and berries grouped by colour in small glass jars will not be a re-establishment of ancient botanical sciences. The apparent scientific approach makes room for a more emotional, family and nostalgic vision. Nature, what's small, sometimes appears banal to our eyes but in my project it wants to be recognized and re-classified. Only now, preserved and catalogued, it can be seen for the first time as something important.

With the word reclassification I would like to focus on the idea of reclaiming beauty and a sense of wonder, by rediscovering what is a lost respect and the curiosity necessary to preserve nature. Recognizing the beauty in the little things is perhaps the first step to understand their vulnerability. To recognize the fragility of the balance of nature, means becoming aware of our own fragility. Reclassify through wonder means to breathe through visions of beauty, to be sure that our air comes from plants, even the most insignificant. Small seedlings, weeds and flowers without name, are given renewed attention, become unexpected visions of beauty that bring us closer to a more emotional, ecological science: without plants there is no air or breath, no life, and therefore no man.

INSTALLATION
The installation will be designed in situ in the location of the exhibition, to adapt itself in the best way to the available space. The final design, consisting of vases, boxes and display cases will be decided following an inspection and days dedicated to the creation of the work at the University of Verona.
The installation will have a great impact given the large number of items that will be distributed in the space dedicated to the project.

OPENING AND PERFORMANCE
At the inauguration, the artist will welcome the audience with a performance that will create a plant sculpture whose final shape will form part of the overall installation. It is a simple action that will allow for further development of the project and a more dynamic approach to the public.


WHY FINANCE MY PROJECT
Finance this work is to recognize the need to protect, preserve and respect. This project aims to reflect on the problem of oxygen in the city by choosing an unusual perspective, which emphasizes the degradation, the desperate lack of greenery and pollution in our cities, but also the idea that ​​beauty still surrounds us, concentrated and sometimes hidden in very small plant forms; and how this beauty, ephemeral and unpretentious, is a vital breath for all of us.


HOW WILL I SPEND MONEY RAISED?
I indicate below the main items of expenditure budgeted for the project:

• Purchase, retrieval and assembly of the materials constituting the installation. They include: books, paper, entomological pins, wooden boxes, display cases, glass jars, and other media that will contain plant materials collected directly in the wild.

• Study and research of plant materials collected, retrieval of scientific advice, including advice from the Botanical Garden of the city of Modena.

• Page layout and printing of the exhibition catalogue. The catalogue, in addition to documenting the exhibition will also feature the history of the project and some written contributions by curators and critics. A section of the catalogue will be devoted to a possible collaboration with the Botanical Garden of the city of Modena.
                        
• Production and printing of promotional materials, printed and multimedia, to communicate the event.

• Curatorship of the event and press office expenditures.

• Service of photographic documentation of (photographs taken will also be used in the exhibition catalogue).

• Refreshments and catering service offered at the inauguration.

• Transport and insurance of the works.