“The nation of plants guarantees the right to water, sound and a clean atmosphere… Let us defend the forests and cover our cities with plants, the rest will not be long in coming,” he writes Stefano Mancuso in The nation of plants.
What role does art have? What are micro-policies? How do we experience spaces? On 29 May 2024 it was inaugurated in Prato the Neophyte Foresta green lung of 7500 m2 which has 150 plants of different species and over 400 shrubs. The Neophyte Forest it is a green result that restores dignity to the area Tobbiana Allande of Prato and is the outcome of the project Art for Reforestationwhich is part of The cities of the futurecreated by Mario Cristianipresident ofContinuing Art Association. The forest, curated by Stefano Mancusoprofessor, biologist and co-founder of PNAT (Project Nature)becomes a place of crossing, migration, meditation and health.
The streets become green rivers, breathing areas where diversity underlines the engine of life. The forestation project was born from a need, from the desire to give life back to those places, to rethink the cities of the future, from the need to extend the concept of nature and link it closely to a vision of art. «Art as oxygen for the mind, trees as oxygen for the body… and vice versa», says Mario Cristiani, is the core of the project, the center of everything, where the concept of breathing mixes with that of art and the panorama colors of multiple species. «Our life depends on a breath… art is life. Art is a breath”, Mario Cristiani always states.
The Neophyte Forest it is located in a highly urbanized, concreted and asphalted context, where the reforestation intervention becomes not only a gesture of greening and home to plant species, capable of creating a natural garden full of biodiversity and inclusion, but the means by which give breathing space again, give life to that area and space for the citizens.
The watchword is biodiversity, or rather neophytes. The work is called Neophyte Forest, a word that in botany describes all those plants naturalized in a given region that develop and propagate just as well as the components of native vegetation, without the intervention of human action. Through the choice of many types of plants, capable of creating a natural, dense and colorful forest, the idea is to generate a mutable, fluid and constantly changing landscape, where immutability is not conceived. Here then is the Magnolia x soulangeana meet the Paulownia tomentosawhich in turn mixes with theTulip tree and theCaucasian fir. The wooded landscape becomes expansive, ready to grow and flourish, yellow and change. The panorama becomes sacred, a place of crossing that becomes home to the olive tree coming from Borgo Laudato Si’ Olive Tree Parka space for ecology education and training wanted by Pope francesco at his residence in Castel Gandolfowhich highlights the role of art in providing support to the most fragile part of the community.
It should be underlined that everything was only possible thanks to fundraising campaigns, charity moments where unique pieces, graphics, serigraphs and lithographs donated by various international artists were auctioned off – including: Antony Gormley, For Barclay, Massimo Bartolini, Loris Cecchini, Alberto Garutti, Carsten Höller, LABINAC (Maria Thereza Alves and Jimmie Durham), Cildo Meireles, Giovanni Ozzola, Tobias Rehberger, Kiki Smith, Pascale Marthine Tayou And Nari Ward – over 150,000 euros were raised for the project Forest City Lawn of which the Neophyte Forest it’s part.
Art becomes the generator of woods, of green rivers that give breath. Associazione Arte Continua seems to believe in it completely and the idea of opening a direct dialogue between places where art has marked the territory, contemporary art and local communities appears more vivid than ever. In a broader vision, which goes beyond the Neophyte Forest, it is possible to see a series of satellite places where the association has worked to create a meeting point between art and nature, between visions and community. So here’s the project Art to Artan exhibition panorama where every boundary between culture and nature, between art and reality, disappears, which brings works by great artists, including Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor And Domenico Paladinoto re-give breath between the places of Poggibonsi, Colle di Val d’Elsa, Saint Gimignano and many others.
For Associazione Arte Continua, art becomes a mediator between worlds and a builder of forests of breath. It takes a political, curative and critical stance that emphasizes the importance of escaping from a sterile, immutable and disposed modernity. The Neophyte Forest it is a great celebration, an invitation to live, grow and change. Here then, as Mario Cristiani has repeatedly exclaimed, Happy Birthday!
