SHANGHAI – Rong Zhai, the historic mansion restored by Prada in downtown Shanghai, turned blue for Sea Past this week because the UNESCO-backed sustainability and ocean preservation activation launched a collection of instructional packages for youngsters and adults in China.
Having introduced the “Ocean & Local weather Village” exhibition to Qingdao, China, in 2023, Prada Sea Past’s Shanghai debut got here with studying workshops designed for youngsters ages 6 to 16, panel discussions, an outside movie screening, a cocktail reception, and an exhibition spreading throughout a number of rooms at Rong Zhai that was open to the general public by way of WeChat miniprogram reservation from Friday to Oct. 19.
Guests will be capable of study concerning the ocean’s position in regulating local weather via themed areas masking subjects reminiscent of marine biodiversity, local weather science, ocean acidification, rising sea ranges, and the affect of particular person and collective motion introduced in interactive codecs like infographics, photographs, and installations.
Enzo Barracco’s photographs on show at Prada Rong Zhai
KongLei
A spotlight of the showcase is a collection of placing images from Enzo Barracco, a vogue photographer-turned-environmental and local weather artist, and an envoy of Prada Sea Past.
These pictures had been captured throughout Barracco’s expeditions to Antarctica, the Galapagos, Hawaii, and Alaska, showcasing nature’s magnificence in addition to firsthand proof of the affect of local weather change.
Barracco stated his life took a transformative flip after studying concerning the legendary English explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton in 2016.
“For his braveness, for his willpower to by no means quit, I made a decision to prepare my very own expedition in Antarctica,” he recalled, including that this pivotal expertise impressed him to depart the managed setting of vogue images for the unpredictable, awe-inspiring world of nature.
His work now facilities on “unlocking the territory in a really sincere method“ at a number of the planet’s most distant and ecologically vital areas. Every challenge is a year-long dedication, requiring him to return to the identical place throughout completely different seasons.
Barracco stated every of the expeditions comes with a ebook, which serves as each an inventive expression and a automobile for environmental storytelling.
“I doc the expertise, and between the phrases and the images, it’s very lovely to create a narrative, and it turns into very basic to unlock the message nature needs to present to us,” he stated, including that artwork, images particularly, can talk the realities of local weather change in ways in which knowledge and numbers can’t.
The artist lauded his collaboration with the Prada Group and the Sea Past initiative, which helps amplify his message to a worldwide viewers, aiming to rekindle humanity’s reference to nature.
“We ship this message to as many individuals as doable to come back again to nature and fall in love once more with nature, as a result of, as I at all times say, we’re all marine animals, we simply overlook,” he stated.
The Prada Sea Past exhibition at Rong Zhai, Shanghai
KongLei
Barracco was additionally amongst a cohort of high-profile audio system at a three-part panel dialogue held within the ballroom of Rong Zhai. These discussions explored the position of cross-sector collaborations, the emotional affect of storytelling, and the facility of artwork to lift consciousness for ocean preservation.
Different audio system included Francesca Santoro, senior program officer on the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Fee of UNESCO; Fangli Qiao, a professor, deputy director common of The First Institute of Oceanography at China’s Ministry of Pure Sources, and director of the U.N. Ocean Decade Collaborative Heart on Ocean-Local weather Nexus; Philip Tinari, director of the UCCA Heart for Modern Artwork; Sakana-Kun, an Ichthyologist and comic from Japan, and Titouan Bernicot, an ocean conservationist based mostly in French Polynesia.
On the philanthropy entrance, a gaggle of main faculty college students from the inland Guizhou province, who’ve by no means seen the ocean, traveled with their academics to Shanghai to go to the exhibition and expertise the seaside for the primary time.
The Prada Sea Past initiative has additionally vowed to proceed to help the promotion of ocean literacy in China with the Marine Science Cultural Package, a instrument that shall be distributed to varsities within the inland Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, reaching round 800 youngsters ages 8 to 12.
Lorenzo Bertelli, head of company social duty of the Prada Group, stated the last word objective of bringing Prada Sea Past to Rong Zhai is to unfold data and rework it into motion.
“By way of this initiative, we preserve a robust deal with the 71 p.c of our planet lined by water, and the pressing want to guard it, as Sea Past has been dedicated to doing since its begin in 2019,” he added.
