Michelangelo Pistoletto’s land art work “Third Paradise” was unveiled on Friday 13th October at the Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital in Bergamo. There, the distinctive shape of the sign-symbol of the artist from Biella was created with terrains at different levels. The by now familiar three circles are realized with 1.8 metre high dunes planted with vegetal essences which, once grown, will surround patients walking through the work. Thanks to a collaboration with Eugea, the symbol was integrated and enhanced with a nucleus of high nectar content plants able to attract local species of butterflies at risk of extinction, favouring their repopulation and creating a segment of an ecological corridor, increasing the local biodiversity.

The work was realized in the north part of the green patch between the area reserved for the air ambulance and the space in front of A&E called “West Park”, designed by the architecture studio Traversi+Traversi. For the Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital, the choice to have a representation of Pistoletto’s symbol through a project of land art is a way to convey the sense of rebirth associated with a place of medical care, at the same time offering patients, relatives and visitors a green area where to meet, walk and find comfort.

“It is a big honour for our hospital to host the work of one of the biggest contemporary artists,” explains Carlo Nicora, general director of the local territorial health service, “the Third Paradise is a symbol of hope and trust in the future which represents the meeting of nature and technology with great intensity, two elements constantly coexisting at the hospital. Here, every year, over 4000 children are born, and over 300 people recover from serious illnesses thanks to organs and tissues transplants, operations combining nature, professional skills and modern medical technology.”

“This work”, commented Santo Radici, director of the Hospital’s Politics and Human Resources department and promoter of the project, “is dedicated to men and women who serve the community with their professionalism and part of their lives so that in our hospital human beings can be born and reborn every day.”

The project Third Paradise in Bergamo was also made possible by the collaboration of the circolo Love Difference in Palazzolo sull’Oglio, which activates creative processes favouring the expression of the individual in the collectivity, the development of new points of view and the growth of awareness of the self as “singular-plural”. “Collaborating with a big institution like Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital and sharing the Third Paradise project with professional figures committed to assist who is born or reborn on a daily basis has been a wonderful experience,” said Grazia Omodei, president of Love Difference.

The main supporter of the project was the Fondazione UBI Banca Popolare di Bergamo, whose statutory objectives place emphasis on the safeguard, enhancement and designing of works of artistic interest. “The work by Michelangelo Pistoletto outside the Hospital falls into this scope.” commented Emilio Zanetti, president of the foundation, “We believe that this Third Paradise has the potential to express the double value of green architecture and “land art”, today as well as in the future. Without forgetting its conceptual aspect conveying the need for care, healing and rebirth people associate to an avant-garde hospital like Papa Giovanni XXIII.”

The opening ceremony was organized with the support of the farm Monzio Compagnoni, the Contrada Bricconi, the farm Massimo Balduzzi and La Marianna.