The image of flowers piled up and deprived of their living space to inevitably recall the theme of intensive agriculture.
The street artists Biancoshock and Francesco Garbelli have recently collaborated on a new project: it is "Apocalypse Trilogy", a series consisting of three installations that differ, united by the presence of the same protagonists, flowers
A trilogy that talks about issues related to the era of globalization, consumerism and the imminent environmental disaster. Each installation presents paradoxical scenarios, such as obese flowers due to the fast food lifestyle, flowers “grown” in cages where they grow overcrowded in a sort of intensive floral breeding or flowers born in the laboratory, nourished through experimental biochemical compositions.
They are Biancoshock and Francesco Garbelli, who start from flower, a symbol of fragility such as to passively undergo strong transformations in order to survive, adapting its nature to the harsh conditions imposed by the human being. Each work is inserted in an urban public green area together with a sign with the name of the "benefactor" who would have contributed to "take care", as a sponsor, of the social problem proposed by the artists.
So, after "Super Size Flowers", a series of flowers, handmade by the artists, who grow "obese" in a public green area managed directly by the Father of all Fast Foods, McDonald's, it is the turn of the series by a title - "Engulf & Devour" ("Trangugia e Divora") - which borrows the name of an imaginary company mentioned in Mel Brooks' Silent Movie: hundreds of flowers live, or rather survive, imprisoned in rusty cages.
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The message? The image of these flowers massed and deprived of their living space inevitably recalls the theme of intensive agriculture and the notorious wet markets and their modus operandi.
Engulf & Devour's motto - "Our fingers are in everything", "We have our hands everywhere" - is shown in the sign in the center of the roundabout, among the exhausted flowers, stigmatizing those "ideals" that often underlie the really existing multinationals in our society.
@biancoshock/Instagram
The installation is configured as a metaphor for a certain, however dominant, way of understanding the economy: the cause of infinite growth continues to be supported, in stark contrast to the correct perception of our planet and its nature, which is that of a finite world - explain the artists - In Mel Brooks' film, Engulf & Devour is a company that wants to secure the monopoly of communication by any means. In this context it assumes more universal and contemporary meanings, offering new food for thought on topics recently addressed, without concrete solutions, during COP26.
Read also: Intensive farms are time bombs, but Cop26 is forgetting about them (INTERVIEW)
What will await us with the third installation of the two street artists?
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Source: Biancoshock / Instagram
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