Pure climate change awareness
With its more than eight meters, Anthony's hands , the youngest son of the international artist Lawrence Quinn , emerge next to the Ca' Sagredo hotel to launch a powerful message about the climate change . “I wanted them to be the hands of a child because they represent the present but above all the future. This beautiful phrase from: "The world is not ours, it is a loan from our children." We must give them back a better world than how we have received it, that is our responsibility, and unfortunately we are not doing it. Now people are more aware of this issue, there is more dialogue but there is still a lot, a lot to do”, he explains in a telephone interview with Conde Nast Traveler from his studio in Barcelona.
Inside 'Support'
VENICE IN THE HEART
It is no coincidence that Venice has been chosen . His mother was born and died in the city of canals last January 2016, his wife is also Venetian, she got married there 30 years ago and celebrated her 50th birthday in May 2016, when the creative spark was lit. Thanks to the support of the City Council and Ca' Sagredo, in parallel to the Venice Biennale , Support was launched in mid-May. “Do you know when I started sculpting hands? On April 17 and opened on May 12 , a fantastic team worked in Huesca de Tecmolde. They worked 24 hours, 7 days a week , then I went to do the touch-ups on the fingers, then they were assembled, painted and sent to Italy, ”he recalls.
The city in the shape of a sole is at the epicenter of the effects of climate change, which also affected its assembly. The hands are made of polyethylene coated with polyurethane. and its placement coincided with days of high water , where the sea level rises. "In this period there shouldn't be, it's in November, and this made it very difficult for us to install," explains Quinn.
As reported by the researchers Marta Marcos, Gabriel Jordà and Damià Gomis in Climatic Change magazine in 2012 , the annual frequency of acqua alta events will increase from 1.4 times to 18.5 by the end of this century and their duration (from 12 to 72 hours) , which would produce "very severe floods, which will affect more than 75% of the city”, according to data collected on the CSIC website.
A WORK BY AND FOR THE PUBLIC
“It is an immediate work, that people have understood… It is a work that reaches the heart . They are the hands of anyone, since you don't see a face, you don't see a figure, you don't see race... it is the human hand ”, Describes Lorenzo Quinn, who confesses that he is still processing the success of that work, accessible on foot and visible from the Grand Canal, in front of the Rialto Market, between Ca' d'oro and Campo Santa Sofia.
Assembly by the canals of the city
“What I like is that it is the work of the people, the work of the people. In the end, all public work belongs to the public, you don't have to pay a ticket to see it and you share it with your camera. That people are sharing it seems like a dream to me, it's incredible ”, he sentences.
Thus, between the silence of secret patios and the noise of tourists in procession, Lorenzo Quinn launches a powerful message to the world: we must do better.
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We have much to do