The utilitarian look of electrical substations built in the 1950s is transformed into a street art series in the celebration of the University of Padua’s 800th Anniversary thanks to the plans committed by E-Distribuzione to regenerate urban areas.
To inaugurate the series, the work of the Paduan artist C0110 (Cizerocentodieci) transformed an Enel electrical substation located on via Buonarroti in the Arcella district of Padua.
Chaired by Pablo Rolle, the volunteer association ‘Le Mille e una Arcella’ commissioned the work as a collection of artistic movements to give a voice to a neighbourhood that has much to express, more today than ever, with an independent and autonomous tone that rises from the bottom up.
The work of C0110 pays tribute to women in all their strength, women who endure pressures at the office and within the family, especially vexed in this pandemic year. The female figure does not intentionally represent a specific ethnic group, thus symbolically meaning to embrace all the women of the world, who have well represented in the Arcella district thanks to its flourishing multiculturalism.
The work is completed by the phrase “TAKE HARD TIMES EASY” and by the image of two hummingbirds holding an elephant to metaphorically represent the strength of women who with their sensitivity and elegance can bear the heaviest loads of life, while in flight. A hope also to see sooner or later a female figure ‘rule’ the University in the future.
This work is the first in a series of artistic interventions for the neighbourhood of Arcella as part of the Universa Universis Patavina Libertas Project. The project includes the transformation of 8 E-Distribuzione electrical substations, each symbolizing a hundred years of the University of Padua’s history and made possible thanks to the contributions and patronage of the University of Padua.
“The University of Padua Delegate for Communication and Scientific Dissemination, Professor Telmo Pievani describes the importance of this project,
“Intelligence and creativity have neither centres nor peripheries. They should and can be expressed everywhere we look. As such, the University of Padua will always support those who wish to transform the urban fabric into a place of art, evolving itself in the name of participation, culture and equality.