Il Capodoglio Giovanni is the fourth and last phase of Whale HUB, a project of audience development and new media strategies developed for the Museum of Geology and Paleontology of the University Museum System as part of the project ValoreMuseo promoted by Fondazione CR Firenze.
Extending at 12 metres long, Il Capodoglio Giovanni is an artistic installation that bings in the spotlight the pollution of the oceans and it will 'invade' the Botanical Gardens “Giardino dei Semplici” from 6 September to 6 October 2019. Edoardo Malagigi's artwork has been produced in collaboration with the cultural association CUT | Circuito Urbano Temporaneo, and it reproduces in a 1:1 scale a cetacean using Tetrapack. A total of 2,200 used cartons have been recycled and used to make the 4,500 elements needed for the external surface of the animal.
Giovanni,a sperm whale living in the Pelagos Sanctuary, a protected marine area in the northern Mediterranean Sea, has been sighted for the first time in 2016 by the Istituto di ricerca Tethys and it has emerged from the water to share with us the fragility of its exhistence, put in danger by man's activities in the seas and by the great issue of plastic garbage.
After the display period at the Botanical Gardens, Il Capodoglio Giovanni will move to Rimini to partecipate in Ecomondo,the exhibition dedicated to industrial and technological innovation of the economy, in order to carry on sharing its message to all human beings inhabiting planet Earth.