On the Island of San Giacomo a new model of ecology, circular economy and art

It was in 2024 when the artist, dancer and choreographer Eun-Me Ahn performed a collective, transformative ritual of blessing St James' Island, inspired by Korean shamanic tradition. Pinky Pinky "Good", which enveloped sea and land in a cloud of pink smoke and coloured stones, became a symbol of good luck, chosen, precisely for this reason, as the cover of the Special Art issue of HTSI, dedicated to the 30th anniversary of Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. 

Exactly two years later, on 7 May 2026, the island in the Venetian lagoon officially opened and is set to become an innovative laboratory for contemporary art and sustainability, where slow research, the silence of the landscape and interdisciplinary dialogue will be at the heart of activities;

Once a monastery, then a military garrison in Napoleonic times, the site was in a state of decay and neglect. The restoration was not only architectural: it was a complex recovery project aimed at transforming it into a circular economy ecosystem, with the aim of cultivating not only contemporary art but also developing green sensibilities and practices.

Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, president of the Foundation, as well as HTSI columnist since the very first issue, with her very popular column Viaggi d'arte, has collected some of the largest and most representative works from her collection and others commissioned especially for the site;

La scritta luminosa Patriarchy = CO2di Claire Fontaine a GONOGO.

There are six permanent installations in the garden that recall the theme of the environment, from Claire Fontaine's Patriarchy = CO2 light inscription to Goshka Macuga's giant rocket, from Pamela Rosenkranz's Old Tree (Pink Seas) to Thomas Schütte's monumental Nixe. And again the inclined chapel, a site-specific work by Hugh Hayden and finally Mario García Torres's homage to Alighiero Boetti.