Amsterdam, unveiled new smog-eating mural: Diversity in bureaucracy

Announced on March 15, the new Dutch smog-eating mural, one of the first in the Netherlands, was unveiled yesterday to the international public in Amsterdam: Diversity in Bureaucracy, created by street artist JDL and promoted in particular by the Italian Yourban2030 with Prince Bernard Culture Fund and Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.

A collective undertaking with a European scope that, taking as an example the Italian project that started in Rome with Hunting Pollution in 2018, has made it a virtuous model of working on cities, combining creativity, art, environment and urban regeneration.

The new work depicts a Surinamese dancer dancing in a maelstrom of administrative documents from the City of Amsterdam. With the mural, JDL aims to draw attention to issues such as togetherness, class inequality and bureaucracy. Hence the title of the work: Diversity in Bureaucracy.

"This was the year of Black Lives Matter,“ said JDL. ”I saw the documentary Classes, about (un)equal opportunities in education, so my awareness of inequality in the Netherlands increased, and that’s where the idea for Diversity in Bureaucracy came from.“ ”This is one of the first murals in the Netherlands made with a smog-eating paint,“ he added. ”With this work we will offset the emissions of fifteen cars every day for ten years. When sunlight reflects off the paint, a chemical reaction occurs. The most polluting substances are neutralized and transformed into harmless salts, which can be washed away by rain. If I can make art and thus also purify the air, then I can only be very happy."

Promoter is the Italian nonprofit Yourban2030, which aims to combine the points of Agenda 2030 with art, land development, new technologies and new visions of entrepreneurship, based on social responsibility.

“Spreading the culture of sustainability through art is our mission, and Judith immediately took up the challenge,” said Veronica De Angelis, president of Yourban2030. "As an entrepreneur, for me it all starts with the need to personally commit our resources to revise public urban spaces, enriching them with new breaths and beauty, technology and art. Beyond words, the actions that we have developed and promoted in Italy and today in the Netherlands demonstrate factually that it is possible to activate real and concrete operations, moving from ideas to deeds. Hunting Pollution, Outside In, in Rome, and Diversity in Bureaucracy in Amsterdam demonstrate that it is possible to realize real redevelopment of public spaces by private individuals as well, by entrepreneurship that cares about public health, as a project that can be implemented on a large scale, understanding beauty as a means of redemption and shared social well-being. This in my opinion is the new frontier of corporate social responsibility, which can also be undertaken through international synergies and public and private communions of intent."

Amsterdam, unveiled new smog-eating mural: Diversity in bureaucracy

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