The most impressive part of the
United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Equatorial
Initiative launch event at the Solomon Guggenheim
museum on January 30 was indisputably the four-story
gilded altar which glowed high over the heads of
all attendees.
I
can't imagine a better environment for this [reception]
than in the midst of this extraordinary piece behind
us," said Mark Malloch Brown the Administrator
of the United Nations Development Programme, pointing
to the 18th Century Baroque masterpiece from a monastery
in Brazil. Not only did the piece (and the entire
exhibit) reference the former Earth Summit in Rio
de Janeiro in 1992, but "the altar encourages
grand thinking," he said. "The Equator
Initiative: The Innovative Partnership Awards for
Sustainable Development" promotes collaboration
and 'community-to-community' exchange across the
Equatorial belt as a means to achieve lofty objectives
like halting poverty and protecting biodiversity,
and supports the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable
Development (WSSD) 2002 in Johannesburg.
The initiative itself resulted from the UNDP's
partnership with BrasilConnects, the International
Development Research Center, the government of
Canada and the International Council for Local
Environmental Initiatives, all of which had representatives
at the reception.
"Ten years ago in Rio, a set of noble ideas
were launched," said Timothy E. Wirth, President
of the United Nations Foundation, adding that
the "purpose" of the Equator Initiative
was to put the ideas to work. In keeping with
the Initiative's commitment to collaboration,
he applauded the launch of equatorinitiative.org,
a Web site whereby visitors can nominate "programs
that ought to receive recognition and ought to
be spread around the world." Other speakers
included Edemar Cid Ferreira, Chairman of the
non-profit foundation BrasilConnects, the exhibit's
sponsor, Parks Tau, the Mayor of Johannesburg's
representative, H.E. Paul Heinbecker, the Canadian
Ambassador to the United Nations and Maureen
O'Neil, President of the International Development
Research Centre.
While the glowing
altar got most of the aesthetes' attention,
numerous other interesting works spiraled
up the Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda which French
architect Jean Nouvel had painted black. Paintings
depicting Dutch colonization, a variety of religious
relics and Afro-Euro-Brazilian-influenced jewelry
and costumes. Small video screens depict men
dancing the capoeira, a traditional Brazilian
dance while wooden limbs or "milagre" ("miracles" in
Portuguese) designed to heal the respective part
of a recipient's body cloak an entire wall.
Housed in a modern American space, the exhibit
uniquely fuses Eastern with Western and old with
new, and highlights the universality of artistic
appreciation.
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