Barnaba Fornasetti’s message for the inauguration of the #iosonocultura2020 strand of the Symbola Foundation. “Io sono cultura” (“I am culture”) is a annual study that quantifies the importance of culture and creativity in the Italian national economy, and which at this historic moment confirms the role of Symbola in highlighting its relevance. 

Since 2011, Fornasetti has collaborated with Symbola by lending the face of its best-known series, Tema e Variazioni, for the cover of the annual report. For 2020, Barnaba Fornasetti has chosen the variation with the hot air balloon: a way of expressing the desire that our creative ability will allow us to take flight and return to looking at things as a whole, gaining a new perspective, and a further confirmation of Fornasetti’s commitment in the field of culture.

The #iosonocultura2020 strand will complement and anticipate the presentation of the 10th annual “I am culture” report, which this year for the first time will be held after the summer, in order to collect data and initial estimates of the impact of the current crisis on the cultural and creative system compared to 2019 data.

In two weekly appointments, it will consider the impact of the crisis on the culture sector, its repercussions on the corresponding labour market, but also the many stories of those who are taking advantage of this moment to change pace, focusing on skills, communities, territories, and technologies.

“In this phase as never before, we need to process the wounds, fill the gaps in meaning and rebuild the sense of things. Crises are moments in which words and stories, which until recently had held us together and guided our lives, suddenly lose their cohesive and guiding power. Nothing succeeds better than culture at fulfilling this function, reconnecting ideas, weaving meanings and imagining new horizons. The real challenge for culture today is therefore not to go back, but to bring together the past and the present, the historic and the futuristic. Creative ability, they say, is in our DNA, we just have to get moving, look at things as a whole and gain a new perspective.”

Barnaba Fornasetti