A few days ago in Milan – in the Lambrate area – Anthropoceano appeared, a mural on the wall of a building in Via Viotti in front of the train station created by Iena Cruz, a Milanese street artist. This is a marine theme and combines art, sustainability, and awareness of one of the most current environmental emergencies: the pollution of the seas caused by plastic. The concept is to create a work that has as its main objective to make people reflect on the scars left by man on the seabed and on the surface of the ocean.
The peculiarity of this work is the technique with which it was created as the artist decided to create an anti-smog mural. This is made possible by the use of special paint, called Airlite, which reduces by 88% the presence of nitrogen dioxide in the air, an innovative technology capable of eliminating pollutants through natural and artificial light. Painting has the task of absorbing the pollution of the city in an artistic way. This has made the wall of the building a sort of natural purifier whose effectiveness is equal to the action of about 330 square meters covered by tall trees.
The realization of this mural is part of the project No Plastic More Fun conceived and carried out by Worldrise, a non-profit organization that sponsors sustainable solutions for large urban centers, with the support of the Ocean Family Foundation and the collaboration of North Sails. North Sails has long been active in tackling the problem of disposable plastics by creating a network of venues that have decided not to serve any type of disposable plastic product.
In the middle of Anthropoceano, there is an oil platform, whose chimney follows the profile of a plastic container that traps the marine ecosystem.
In a period like this, where the environmental struggle is more alive than ever, the work wants to creatively retrace the path that plastic accomplishes: from its origin to the environmental impact that comes with it. At the same time, depicting some of the most threatened marine animals, the mural invites people to reflect on all the issues related to the exploitation of natural resources such as overfishing and poaching of which sharks and whales are victims.
Text by Anna Cardaci
