In Defense of Nature - Artivism for Planetary Futures

May 9, 2025 - Fondazione Bonotto partecipa a Voice of Commons

Voice of Commons is a radio broadcast project developed by Unless focused on our global commons and their existential role in ensuring the stability of the planetary ecosystem.
Voice of Commons aims to give a voice to the global commons: to the Antarctic, the ocean, the atmosphere and space. Without a voice, the commons have no right to vote. Although these different systems, located beyond national jurisdictions and belonging to humanity as a whole, are geographically distinct, they form interconnected ecological networks that ensure the balance and resilience of our Earth system for future generations.

Voice of Commons will broadcast from the Venice Biennale ticket office designed by Carlo Scarpa in 1952, restored and reactivated for the occasion as a dynamic broadcasting center.

Fondazione Bonotto participates in the project with the creation of the "Global Commons" tapestry designed by Gulia Foscari and made by the master weaver Giovanni Bonotto and with a conversation entitled: In Defense of Nature - Artivism for Planetary Futures

The "Global Commons" tapestry installed inside the Planetary Embassy as the initiative's textile manifesto is a woven cartography of the Cosmos: a cutout from the Earth to the universe built from satellite images provided by the European Space Agency, ranging from the seabed to the stratosphere, from the Antarctic ice caps to orbital debris. Woven in pixels, it stitches together the utopias of the Holocene and the collapse of the Anthropocene, transforming raw data into an imaginary of the commons. Visualizing what seems distant helps to build the very support needed to protect it.

"In Defense of Nature - Artivism for Planetary Futures," Giulia Foscari's conversation with Patrizio Peterlini, reflects on the power of art to defend and reimagine our planetary commons.
From Gustav Metzger's radical denunciations of environmental destruction—such as the air pollution of "Mobbile" and the "Stockholm Project," which made the toxicity of our atmospheric commons visible—to Joseph Beuys's visionary "Operation in Defense of Nature," the discussion explores how artistic practice can challenge extractivism, restore ecological consciousness, and affirm interdependence.
This concluding dialogue asks: can artivism cultivate a planetary ethos? Can it renew our capacity to defend—and imagine—the commons we all share?

For more information: voice-of-commons.org/en/