Saturday, June 26, 2021, Street Levels Gallery has inaugurated “Relay on the future: telling the story of foster care”, a Public Art project born from the collaboration with the Centro Affidi of Florence and Consorzio Zenit. Ache77 has accompanied and coordinated the minors in the execution of the wall, encouraging confidence in their possibilities. The collective work is located in Via del Terzolle, near the Rifredi Station in Florence. Following a series of cognitive and formative meetings, the artist and the staff of Street Levels Gallery have opened a participatory dialogue with the young people of the center, revealing the cathartic and liberating potential of artistic practice. This initiative is constituted as a multifunctional opportunity. For the young adherents it provides an educational and experiential opportunity aimed at learning urban expression; for the community it represents an alternative vehicle for sharing the sign and sensitivity of those who usually have the opportunity to express themselves and tell their stories only in private contexts.

The work shows two expressions of a single face, that of the family foster care. The gray side reveals the emotional expression of absence, the lack of a stable emotional bond; the colored profile instead depicts the welcome, the serenity in feeling accompanied during the path of life.

Among the various reflections gathered during the implementation of the project, the urgency to believe in a wider and more radical connotation of foster care emerges. Foster care is not only a way of accompanying the minor towards maturity; it also means encouraging the acquisition of a greater self-awareness and fostering the responsibility of one’s civic role within society.

ALTRO