Meadows – One nature, One world: Sos biodiversity – Salon des beaux arts 2019 – Paris 12-15 décembre

ONE NATURE, ONE WORLD: SOS BIODIVERSITY!
MEADOWS (Mediterranean Endeavors Advancing Development Of Widespread Sustainability) is a non-governmental, non-profit organization aiming to promote cultural exchange and advancement in the arts through its seventy-six chapters distributed worldwide. MEADOWS engages in programs collaborating with the governmental and non-governmental sectors, as well as with all kinds of specialized international organizations by organizing seminars, exhibitions and orientation programs within the cultural and sustainable development realms. As an International NGO, MEADOWS has consistently maintained a spectrum of activities to encompass an ever-growing global tendency to use visual arts as a powerful tool of cultural dialogue. The current exhibition, in the context of the Salon des Beaux Arts 2019 in Paris, involves forty-six artists from thirty-one different countries and is the physical implementation of a concept directed towards that goal. The inspiration of this project comes from an emerging issue in our own times: human-induced climate change and its dramatic consequences. We only have one world to live in, and it won’t last forever. Global warming and the extreme climatic events that it is causing in the world today are only a few expressions of the current environmental crises produced by pollution, the exploitation of natural resources and mass consumption. Saving the environment should be on everyone’s to-do list since recent global climate change, which certain politicians deny and many of us choose to ignore, threatens the survival of every species on Earth. The subject of this MEADOWS group exhibition allows us to assist in the defense of Nature and to protect the natural environment by depicting our natural world, thus calling attention to the beauty of the diverse species in the biospheres of each MEADOWS artist exhibited here. Biodiversity is our heritage and our salvation. Protecting it and conserving it for ourselves and for posterity is our duty. The diversities of Nature expressed in so many different paintings from just as many different environments are here united in a single installation.  “All art is quite useless”, Oscar Wilde once wrote. To all visitors, we take this opportunity to invite you to contemplate his words and to reflect upon our shared predicament in the anthropocene era.
In prestigious location of the Carrousel du Louvre, forty-six very different cultural identities have come together to meet and engage in dialogue, co-existing in a small space, to realize a call to action to increase awareness of the need to protect our diversity. At a glance, these artists offer a world view of contemporary visual art, confirming the transformative power of art. This exhibition proves once again that collaborative efforts can go a long way towards achieving our goals of sustainable development, thereby giving a sense of hope for the future. We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to artist Sibilla Bjarnason MD, President of MEADOWS Iceland and Latvia, for her endorsement, indispensable and tireless collaboration to the realization of this project. Special thanks go to the Executive Director Ms. Isabelle Lawson of the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts for her kind assistance. We would like to single out artists Tonino Maurizi, Hagop Sulahian, Vittorio Tonon, Clarice Zdanski and similarly all those who assisted directly or indirectly in making this exhibition a reality and in contributing wholeheartedly from their valuable time to help raise the bar once more.