Italian artist Lorenzo Quinn unveiled a large sculpture earlier this month made up of six giant pairs of holding hands called Building Bridges. The eye-catching installation, which is 15 metres high and 20 metres in length, arches over a waterway at a former shipyard in Venice’s Castello District. Each pair of hands is individually titled ‘Help’, ‘Love’, ‘Friendship’, ‘Faith’, ‘Wisdom’, and ‘Hope’, and stretch over the waterway to hold one another.
The sculpture is meant to symbolize the need for understanding between different groups of people, the building of bridges and unity, whether its geographical, emotional or cultural.
Speaking to The Associated Press Quinn said, ‘Humanity has never grown by creating barriers. It always grows when it opens up its borders and it welcomes new cultures. Venice is a testament to that. Venice opened routes to Asia, the Far East, with Marco Polo and the Merchants of Venice. It has been a driving force of European growth always.’
May You Live in Interesting Times. The title of the 58th Venice Art Biennale is a reflection of our precarious times. As an antidote, Lorenzo Quinn's 'Building Bridges' features giant hands representing universal values of humanity: friendship, faith, help, love, hope, wisdom pic.twitter.com/7WrYJru9rF
— InteriorDesignOnline (@I_D_Online) May 27, 2019
This sculpture follows on from one Quinn erected in Venice in 2017 entitled ‘Support’. The sculpture is of hands reaching out of the Grand Canal, which went viral, calling attention to climate change which, among other things, affects rising sea levels and threatens the city of Venice.
Building bridges di Lorenzo Quinn#BiennaleArte2019 #Venice pic.twitter.com/mLt7Yw6xTg
— Baglioni Hotels (@Baglioni_Hotels) May 24, 2019
‚Supporting Hands’ Lorenzo Quinn #Venice pic.twitter.com/EHkocucgJz
— Christine Prager (@Fiorini2012) November 13, 2017
Image: Halcyon Art International
