THE DREAM - Artists against Climate Change

About

The French artist Alexandra Mas, here also as curator and real driving force of the project, has been actively supporting the movement for some time and when in 2019 at Art Miami she presented her performance NO on ocean plastic pollution she had the opportunity to meet Peter Hopkins of the SHIM Art artistic network. The dialogue was immediate, and united by the same feeling and the same desire to operate, they gave life to SHIM ECO, an open source platform with a non-hierarchical structure that connects artists, creatives from different disciplines, scientists, philosophers, worldwide, to share information and works focused on climate change, the environment and social justice in order to raise awareness and inspire change. Shim Eco's first event held in New York, gathered around a hundred artists with five curators and was published in 2021 on Artsy, the largest e-commerce art platform in the world.

One of the curators, Diana Hohental of the Hohental und Bergen gallery in Berlin says “Sustainability, climate crisis… these terms are now very common, but they do not describe anything that we did not already know, and we largely neglect. Only the arrival of shocking disasters such as the pandemic or the war in Europe can alarm us and show us how unprepared we are ... But now, thanks in part to the rebellious enthusiasm of young people and artists to embarrass the established order , even world politicians, with some notable exceptions, evaluate environmental threats with the same degree of seriousness as major social issues such as hunger, poverty, immigration.

Surely the climate crisis is a serious and complex problem and the solutions are uncomfortable for us all, political messages are considered boring and then neglected, for a real awakening of consciences something else is needed and the creative world with its disruptive communication capacity can come strong to the public and making people think, to stimulate individual measures to contribute to a cleaner world.

The project THE DREAM was born from these reflections, where experience meets youth and where with different expressive methods all share the following principles:

the passion for art and the pursuit of excellence, the awareness of one's responsibility towards the planet, the challenge to awaken consciences, openness to dialogue and the willingness to learn new things in every situation.

The exhibition, as the title implies, wants to spread the message of denunciation through the visual arts but not through shock, but through a dream journey, a daydream, to wake up from the sleep of indifference and that can arouse reflections and concrete reactions.

In the spirit of the SHIM ECO network, the curators make choices of artists with a view to beauty and message and in collaboration with the Saturnia Festival they also give space to video works and auteur films, with a curatorial vision attentive to the differences in expressive practice, age, gender and ethnicity.

The exhibition will welcome 23-year-old Ukrainian Alona FEDORENKO, alongside world-famous photographer Winnie DENKER. Works by Sébastien LAYRAL reflecting on social justice, Philippe FORTE-RYTER's inclusive art videos with the MEZamorphose ORchestr-ALL will be presented; the scientific approach of Roz DELACOUR; the pure ecological poetry of Nana DIX and Boris POLLET; the monumental accusatory works of Sarah OLSON or Bernard GARO; a pinch of humor from Stéfanie RENOMA or Victoria TASCH.

Nicolas HAMM and Grigori DOR and some artists who are part of museum collections such as Haralampi G. OROSCHAKOFF have embraced this project with enthusiasm and supported it with their participation.

Among the young participating artists are some students such as Anastasia Grigoryeva of IFA, the International Fashion Academy of Paris, an international university with a great environmental sensitivity, which in its three campuses in Paris, Shanghai and Istanbul promotes an ethical vision of fashion, which is sustainable and open to all, encouraging and supporting projects aimed at raising awareness on these issues.

Venice, with the peculiarities that distinguish it and make it so fragile in the face of the unknown of climatic developments, is a place that by its very essence becomes an amplifier of the questions that inevitably arise regarding these issues and Spazio SV as always welcomes with pleasure the authors who can help us to observe and reflect on the issues that we are all expected to face.

The participating artists come from the following countries:

Argentina - Australia - Austria - Canada - Denmark - Dominican Republic - Finland - France - Germany - Great Britain - Italy - Israel - Holland - Poland - Romania - Russia - Spain - United States - Sweden - Switzerland - Ukraine.

List of main artists (selection)

Roz DELACOUR - France, Winnie DENKER - Denmark, Nana DIX - Germany, Grigori DOR - Russia

Bernard Garo - Switzerland, Peter Hopkins - USA, Iris Hoppe - Germany, Anton LAIKO - Germany,

Sebastien LAYRAL - France, Ola LEWIN - terrestrial, Maria MARSHALL UK / Switzerland,

Alexandra MAS Romania / France, Trevor Lloyd MORGAN - Australia, Sarah OLSON - USA,

Haralampi G. OROSCHAKOFF - Austria, Dodi REIFENBERG - Germany, Stéfanie RENOMA - France,

Catrin ROTHE - Germany, Wolf SON - Russia.