THE BOY NEEDS TO COOL OFF

2020 London, UK

Creative Direction

Interdisciplinary project focusing on climate crisis.
Project winner of the MURZE MAGAZINE UK artistic residency.

” The Boy Needs to Cool Off begins on site in Canary Islands, when Antonio D’Addio visits areas devastated by the great Gran Canaria fire of 2019, which destroyed 80% of the flora of the island declared UNESCO heritage.
The piece is composed by 78 metal plates engraved with images and words that make up an armour.
Each element on the plates builds a narrative path that investigates the human factor in relation to the destruction of the natural environment.
The text engraved on the plates is taken from scientific data and publications.
The poems, written in collaboration with the English poet Joseph Issac, respond to the images of devastation engraved on the plates. The creation of the armor is inspired by the image of a man walking through fire, suggesting that the way to escape the normalization of events is to individually cross it. The narrative path starts from the analysis of the physical phenomenon of heat waves and spontaneous fires, arriving at the analysis of the concept of climate refugee: the fate that scientists predict for half of the world’s population by 2100.
The Boy Needs to Cool Off is an interdisciplinary project that investigates new methodologies to encourage change and social awareness. ”