A rhino popped up inside the airport at Fiumicino: "Natural Reaction" By Marcantonio
"How many times each day do we think that our society is taking an overly stressful, consumerist and compromising turn? How much of the [...]
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"How many times each day do we think that our society is drifting too stressful, consumerist, and compromising? How much of our attitude alters the natural balance of the world around us? And what remains within us of the natural world to which we belong?"
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It is a powerful message that tells "Natural Reaction" By Marcantonio, the contemporary artwork depicting a life-size white rhinoceros, measuring about four meters in length with a fifty-inch screen embedded in the horn, which passengers can admire in the Leonardo da Vinci boarding area E.
The new work installed in the Roman airport leaves no room for interpretation: the white rhinoceros, an endangered animal with just two female specimens still on the planet, sends the last desperate cry and leaves a spark of awareness to passengers departing from Italy's main airport. It is a message echoed by Aeroporti di Roma, which with this work, together with ACI (Airports Council International) and IATA (International Air Transport Association), joins in the fight against illegal wildlife trafficking to promote the protection of biodiversity, which, according to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), generates between $7 billion and $23 billion each year, one of the most lucrative illicit commercial activities in the world.
"With the installation of this work," commented the President of Aeroporti di Roma, Vincenzo Nunziata during his opening remarks - we confirm our commitment to building the airport of the future, a place where it is possible to find spaces for in-depth study and reflection, including on important and urgent environmental issuessuch as the protection of the environment and nature and the fight against climate change, crucial issues for Aeroporti di Roma. Our intense artistic and cultural programming thus fits into ADR's sustainability strategy and has enabled us in recent years to transform theLeonardo da Vinci Airport in a unique, increasingly engaging and beauty-oriented place, not only for travelers, but also for our community and the area in which we are located, contributing to the achievement of great goals witnessed by the numerous international awards that have brought Fiumicino airport to the top of European airports as quality of service."
"I imagined a huge white rhinoceros passing at full speed inside an office, hurling desks and computers into the air, an act of rebellion on the part of nature, which, awakened, becomes an uncontroversial force reacting to our increasingly insane and stressful lifestyle. It is a dramatic yet ironic scene, a tragicomic image that invites us to reflect on our way of life. What will the employees in that office do? Will they put everything back in place or will they take the opportunity to change their lives? Will they see the white rhinoceros as a premonitory sign, as an opportunity to be seized, or as yet another reaction of nature to which we will pay no attention? If it happened to us, what would we do? The white rhinoceros rebels against our habits; it is the desperate act, the last cry, of an endangered animal. If this vision intrigues us or makes us smile, it is because maybe there is a little rhino inside us that sometimes wants to turn the table and change its life," explained the author of Natural Reaction, Marcantonio.
