ART
Yourban 2030
The eco-friendly street art
Yourban 2030 is a not-for-profit group wich develop and coordinate artistic projects to make people reflect on issues such as the environment and the relationship between human and nature, in support of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable and Development Agenda.
Starting from the idea of the founder, Veronica De Angelis, they regenerate the urban environment through street art and innovative green technology.
Hunting pollution, Rome
Yourban 2030 works consist with anti-smog murals, that is street art eco-friendly able to neutralize air pollutants with paint. This is possible thanks to a chemical process in the paint called Airlite.
This revolutionary technology reacts to light – both natural and artificial – whereby pollutants are essentially captured and removed from the air, purifying it in a natural way. This particular paint can have beneficial effects up to ten years after its application, and of course, larger the painted surface is, more it has a positive impact on the quality of the air.
Yourban’s first project is located in Rome, where the international street artist Iena Cruz painted the largest green murals in Europe in 2019. Hunting Pollution is the name of this project and that’s literally an anti-smog surface: almost one thousand square meters in the polluted center of the Ostiense district in Rome, purify and clean the air like a forest of thirty trees. In 21 days, Iena Cruz painted, on the facade of a building on Via del Porto Fluviale, a blue heron above on an oil barrel and surrounded by poisonous tentacles, a metaphor for the pollution.
Amoretcura, Rome
The artist, who has always had an interest to environmental issues and climate change, had already experimented different techniques for making his urban artwork around the world, but had never used the Artlite painting proposed by Yourban 2030. He has commented :
"I didn't know this kind of paint, I discovered it only thanks to Veronica, and knowing that the paint I work with, instead of polluting the air, made it even cleaner, made me happy".
No polluting spray were used for Hunting Pollution, which has become the first example of a virtuous solution of urban regeneration. Still in Rome, Yourban 2030 has developed a green murals dedicated to the LGBTQ+ movement and the project “Amoretcura” by the Chilean artist Carlos Atoche, dedicated to the prevention of breast cancer. Besides this, in Amsterdam Yourban 2030 has painted the eco-murals “Diversity in Bureaucracy” dedicated to the development of equal opportunities.
Diversity in bureaucracy, Amsterdam
So, the organization of Veronica De Angelis, as well as raising awareness of environmental issues, promotes high social impact initiatives, in wich art can be used to promote environmental sustainability, increase public awareness and suggest good practices: a crucial resource for understanding the present and looking to the future.