Pollution is a problem that concerns us all, we have said it many times and together we must find solutions to avoid running into even bigger problems. And in this already compromised situation even art must do its part, this is what Andrea Villa thinks, who has returned to work with a project dedicated to pollution due to Coronavirus protection devices.

Street artist born in Turin and very often compared to the famous Banksy, his name is not Andrea, his name is not Villa but they call him Andrea Villa because of an error in publication by a newspaper. His identity is unknown and a bit like superheroes he wears a mask to avoid being recognized.

In this historical period, art cannot remain passive but must act, and no longer be just an ornament detached from the real context.

The artist reading the data of the study of Ispra, the Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, which estimated that throughout 2020 between 160 thousand and 440 thousand tons of anti Covid-19 devices to be treated as undifferentiated garbage.

Just think now that if only 1% of the masks used in a month were disposed of incorrectly, there would be 10 million devices dispersed in the environment, a truly disproportionate number.

From these data was born his new series “Mask Pollution”, with his art Andrea Villa wants to emphasize a problem mistreated and little considered. The street artist has created posters with the fabric “the breath”, capable of absorbing pollution and then hung them in one of the most polluted cities in Italy: Turin.

As an artist I want to talk about fundamental issues in this radically changing world.

Hoping that, here as elsewhere, the post-pandemic restart will sound a very useful wake-up call about a problem we can no longer ignore, here is Andrea Villa’s series, “Mask Pollution”.