Venice, two huge bottles arrive in the Grand Canal. Xhixha and Braglia's ecological provocation.

How to send an environmental message by provoking, at the height of the tourist season, a city like Venice, which has always been a battleground on ecological policies and more? This time, however, the message is not only about the city, but is a warning to the whole world. That comes from an unprecedented pair consisting of established artist Helidon Xhixha (Durres, 1970) and the very young Giacomo Braglia (Lugano, 1996), who bring their project The Twin Bottles: Message in a Bottle to the Grand Canal .

What does it consist of? From July 20 to September 30, 2019, two huge floating steel sculptures, one four meters and the other three and a half meters, reproducing plastic bottles and thus becoming a metaphor for plastic pollution, will be placed on the Grand Canal, near the Accademia bridge, in front of the garden of Palazzo Franchetti. One of the most frequented (and photographed) views of the city, all the more so in these months in which the Venice Biennale, now in its fifty-eighth edition, enters its climax.

Xhixha and Braglia’s work intends to focus on the issue of pollution of the world’s seas contaminated by plastics, a topic that is increasingly central and present today in the debate on safeguarding the planet. And the city of Venice was chosen to deliver this message for a whole range of reasons, starting with its relationship with the environment that has endured for centuries but is nowadays under constant threat.

Indeed, Xhixha and Braglia’s warning is also addressed to Venice and to all its visitors: the countless plastic bottles thrown away every day by superficial consumers and irresponsible waste managers are a phenomenon that endangers marine ecosystems, sparing not even a city in constant symbiosis with water such as Venice, sustained by delicate balances and known all over the world, therefore suited to amplify the universality of the complaint.

“Our twin bottles,” the artists explain, “through art deliver an important environmental message. Diving into different seas, we have seen with our own eyes how plastic pollution is now at alarming levels. Fifteen years from now we are likely to have more plastic than fish. We wanted to bring this alarming problem to the surface by ’denouncing’ it through the language of art: we must reverse the trend, work on people’s conscience. And we need to do it soon.”

Xhixha and Braglia then want to offer “economic” support as well: in fact, in support of this artistic and symbolic project, a donation will be made to Legambiente to fund the Tartalove initiative for the protection of sea turtles in the Mediterranean, a species also endangered by plastics that pollute the seas.

Pictured: Helidon Xhixha - Giacomo Braglia. The Twin Bottles: Message in a Bottle, Grand Canal, Venice. Ph. Credit Giorgia Panzera

Venice, two huge bottles arrive in the Grand Canal. Xhixha and Braglia's ecological provocation.

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