NATURAL ART OASIS
Andrea Conte
Andrea Conte, known as Andreco, is a visual artist with a scientific background in Environmental Engineering and academic collaborations on nature-based solutions and green infrastructure. His multidisciplinary artistic research explores the relationships between urban space and landscape, and between human and non-human, through symbolic languages and various techniques (installations, performance, sculpture, painting, video, public art).
He has created projects such as the Climate Art Project, dedicated to climate and social justice, and Flumen, focused on water bodies and their regeneration. He has participated in major international events such as the 2018 Venice Biennale, the 2024 Malta Art Biennale, and the 2025 Milan Triennale. His research project Future Environments was selected by the Italian Council 13 for the 2024-2025 biennium.
Throughout his career, he has received awards and recognition, including the 2017 Talent Prize and Jazzi 2016, and his work has been published in Nature Scientific Reports. Some of his creations are part of the collections at MAMbo in Bologna and the Pecci Center in Prato.
Art Installations
Paradoxical Totem
This Corten steel sculpture, standing about three meters tall, belongs to Andrea Conte’s (Andreco) Paradoxical Totems series, a project the artist has been developing for over twenty years. The totems present impossible and imaginative combinations, where elements like clouds, sand, or meteorites take on paradoxical and symbolic forms, leaving room for free interpretation.
Inspired by the thought of John Dewey, the work is not just an aesthetic object but an exercise in understanding the world: it invites reflection on the links between humans and non-humans, transforming “vibrant matter” into experience and meaning. This Paradoxical Totem thus takes on an almost magical value, reinforced by the magic square that supports it.