The Vatican is hosting at St. Peter's Square the photo exhibition Changes, which will be open to the public from May 7 to 27, 2024.
The Changes exhibition is curated by Lia and Marianna Beltrami, who founded the Emotions to Generate Change project. The Exhibition was organized Lia and Marianna Beltrami, jointly with the Dicastery for Communication, and in collaboration with the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and the Laudato si' Higher Education Center.
The official opening took place on May 7 at 12:30 p.m. at the “Charlemagne Arm” of the Colonnade in St. Peter's Square. In the afternoon of the same day, a Symposium on the theme “Art and communication to generate change” was held at the Casina Pio IV and moderated by the Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication (DPC), Paolo Ruffini.
The 24 Changes photographs come from Borneo, Bangladesh, Togo, Ethiopia, the Amazon, Florida, Greece, Italy, Iceland, Australia and Turkey and present a contrast between the beauty and wonder of Creation and the destruction of climate change, which affects both our environment and populations around the world.
The photographs, as well, make reference to Pope Francis' call in his Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum: “Yet, with the passage of time, I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point. In addition to this possibility, it is indubitable that the impact of climate change will increasingly prejudice the lives and families of many persons. We will feel its effects in the areas of healthcare, sources of employment, access to resources, housing, forced migrations, etc..” (LD2)
The name of the Changes exhibition refers both to climate change and its impacts, which we are experiencing with increasing intensity, and to the challenge to change our views and our actions, so that we can truly say in the words of St. Francis: “Praise be to you, my Lord”.
The photographers who have collaborated in the exhibition are: Neşe Arı, Raffaele Merler, Giampaolo Calzà, Franco Giovanazzi, Vassilis Ikoutas, Asaf Ud Daula, Sebastiano Rossitto, Ferran Paredes Rubio and Francesca Larrain.
