Pigafetta
Pinguinos

Presentation by the "La Vigna" International Library of Vicenza at the 16th Giornata del Contemporaneo (5 December 2020).

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The project of the artist Margherita Michelazzo "PigafettaPinguinos", already deposited at the MIBACT  and conceived for the celebrations of Antonio Pigafetta from Vicenza and his "Report" on the first trip around the world, 500 years after the historic enterprise but conditioned in its realization by the pandemic in progress, its aims are not only celebratory but also those of to stimulate, through a form of contemporary artistic expression, with a strong impact, such as installation and urban-architectural performance, the desire for historical and geographical knowledge, the enhancement of the territory and its promotion. The International Library "La Vigna" of Vicenza joined the project, finding in the presentation the quality of a great creative contribution and the originality of a brilliant idea that could really change the face of the city, fueling a circuit of curiosity and interest around such an important and meaningful celebration. The project is in tune with the events promoted by the Pigafetta 500 Cultural Association which, with the granting of patronage, confirmed interest and support.  

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500 years after the epochal discovery of the Patagonian strait, which made possible the first tour around the world, on November 28, according to the Julian calendar, in these days, according to the Gregorian one, a colony of penguins, 38 as the number of days of the first passage from east to west, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, stop between the columns of Palazzo Chiericati and in the square opposite that housed the Timber Market in the Angelica Plan of the city. In front of Palazzo Chiericati, because it was the apostolic nuncio Chiericati who favored the participation in the Spanish enterprise, of the young Vicentino, a subject of Venice. Between the ancient walls of the Palazzo della Ragione and the Palladian facing of the Basilica, in front of the Cà d'Oro, inside the hallways of the ancient buildings….
 
Virtually now due to the ongoing pandemic.
Really, hopefully, in September 2022, 500 years after the end of the first trip around the world, when the chronicler Pigafetta handed Charles V his diary, where he first described that type of penguin, later called "SPHENISCUS MAGELLANICUS", that from the Argentine coasts to the Chilean coasts of the "Patagonian Strait", marks the tormented search for the passage to the west.
Hence, with an urban and architectural performance , dynamic in time and space, stopping next to the most significant architectures of the city, of the "before" and "after", the great geographical discovery, a hundred penguins, invades the city to create new perspectives and interactive actions with the visitor - spectator, tourist or simple passing citizen ... amazement and curiosity for the risky and apparently unthinkable combination of the funny aquatic birds of the Fin del Mundo, with the refined constructions of Palladio .

Penguins appear stylized but not devoid of identity . There are five basic modules, identified with the name of five illustrious personalities involved in the delivery of Pigafetta's diary to Charles V, emperor. With the characteristic white "C" that distinguishes the head, they refer to the images of the "nuns of Santa Maria Auxiliadora on the bus ... directed to the penguin colony of Cabo Virgenes. A bus loaded with virgins. Eleven thousand virgins. About a million penguins. WHITE BLACK, WHITE BLACK, WHITE BLACK "(Chatwin). Pigafetta Penguins are strictly black and white. Raven's beak is black. The front is white with black parallel bands. The plumage of the back is black. Black with a white cross, the dress of the knights of Malta to whose order Antonio Pigafetta belonged. Black and White in the story of the first trip around the world and in the life of his chronicler. The form plays between the “two-dimensional” and “three-dimensional” aspects and offers multiple visions through a dynamic and shareable positioning, operable with aggregations, separations, continuity… in a space intended as a sequence. And the measure of the form will be given by the sequence and by the different sequences that could arise in the interaction with the viewer. Penguins are not well-rounded but it is the color that makes them look so. They are shaped on XLAM panels . The panels are produced by the Veneto Wood Consortium which thus restores value to the PEFC certified spruce wood, coming from the Veneto woods destroyed by the Vaia storm. Made with trees broken by climate change, Pigafetta's land penguins invite you to search for new routes of active adaptation to change for a new geography of the world. They underline the ancient link with the Antarctic lands and the recent one on the protection of Nature and biodiversity for the entire Planet (Parco delle Dolomiti and Parque Etnobotanico Omora). Symbol of the "journey", of the "discovery", of the "change", of the "risk of extinction", the Pigafetta Penguins send a message of hope, in this time of painful change: adaptation to change.
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