7 minute read
Lavazza Calender Gregarious Initiative
LAVAZZA CALENDER 2021
Francesca Lavazza, Lavazza Group Board Member.
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Steve McCurry
“I certainly hope to find in her the same joy, the same curiosity, the same love, and the same respect for our fellow humans that we’ve tried to instill in her. That same humanity that we have come to call ‘new’, and that I hope will have by then become ‘old’”.
1. How did Lavazza prepare for the Calendar this time during the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic?
Ans: The COVID-19 emergency was an exceptional situation for all of us and was posing our country with major challenges. In situations such as these, it was essential to proceed with transparency, pragmatism and maximum effort to ensure the greatest possible safety for everyone. Lavazza- that was among the first companies to take action to provide concrete aid to the communities in which it operates, starting with Italy-with the New Humanity campaign wanted to speak to the heart of individuals and the new generations, spurring them on with a positive message of rebirth, a “good morning humanity”.
2. Share an insight on the vision of Lavazza Calendar 2021?
Ans: The New Humanity is the concept behind the Calendar: a lens through which to look into the future and a powerful message inspiring the projects the company has recently developed: from the “Good Morning Humanity” advertising campaign, with which Lavazza speaks out in an appeal to reawaken individual sensibilities, to Beyond Walls, the land art project by artist Saype, completed last October at the Porta Palatina Park in Turin, in which two hands reach out to one other and are clasped together in a way that conveys confidence and mutual help, inviting us to make a collective effort to feel part of a single ecosystem.
3. Is the concept of The New Humanity an initiative towards greater sustainability?
Ans: The New Humanity is the lens with which Lavazza looks at the world around us and the future that awaits us, and it takes shape in a new concept that transversally contaminates all the company’s activities in its different souls, in a coherent and integrated path. And the first expression of this new conceptual path was the advertising campaign “Good Morning Humanity” signed by Armando Testa and launched in May which repeats the significant words of Charlie Chaplin as a testimony to the need to find and accept each other, and to move forward together. This strong content, a strong creative approach and contemporary language have contributed to spreading the universal values of tolerance, progress and sustainability. All messages that are the basis of the brand’s vision.
4. Tell us about your experience working on the calendar this year.
Unfortunately, due to the health emergency, we could not really live a behind-the-scenes experience, each of the protagonists was isolated in his or her environment to conceive their most significant artwork. Nevertheless, thanks to technology, we had asked all of them to share with us a moment, a background story to highlight how and what they have been through to create a final piece of art. Any single contribution – ‘the best of’ - was then included in a TV like show, which was featured on all Lavazza Channels globally and distributed digitally as well. Different actors of the #THENEWHUMANITY project alternated in a spectacular and immersive setting to tell a digital story that is meant to involve, stimulate and excite the public. It is not only an entertainment product but a vehicle of strong and contemporary messages.
5. How The New Humanity integrates with all the other projects of Lavazza?
Ans: #THENEWHUMANITY models and inspires all the projects developed by Lavazza, including the Lavazza 2021 Calendar, which this year becomes a 360° ARTISTIC PROJECT that brings together photographers and other artists, an avant-garde artistic and cultural movement that designs the way to the birth of a new humanity.
6. How committed is Lavazza to the social welfare and wellbeing of society?
Ans: Not only through the Calendar, Lavazza has always taken its social role very seriously: a commitment that is visible all over the world thanks to the work of the Lavazza Foundation, the partnership with the United Nations in spreading the Global Objectives Agenda in Italy and around the world, the new Manifesto; a milestone that inspires Lavazza’s path in the CSR field, all this is intended in favor of awakening individual sensitivity towards progress, sustainability and responsibility.
7. Which artists collaborated with the Lavazza Calendar 2021 this time?
Ans: Christy Lee Rogers, Denis Rouvre, Carolyn Drake, Steve McCurry, Charlie Davoli, Ami Vitale, Martha Cooper, David LaChapelle, Martin Schoeller, Joey L., Eugenio Recuenco, Simone Bramante and Toilet Paper are the 13 masters of photography who put their name to the 2021 Lavazza Calendar.
8. What contributions did the photographers have and what their focal motivation was for the calendar?
Ans: The photographers were called on to translate their vision of the new humanity into images seen through their eyes which resulted in 13 evocative images for 13 pages, each bearing the words of the message promoted by Lavazza: This is the good morning to our rediscovered humanity.
9. Give one last message to the people out there on behalf of Lavazza.
Ans: “For Lavazza, the New Humanity represents not only a new narrative direction, but also an artistic vanguard. The origins of the 2021 Lavazza Calendar are very close, because the concept was devised and decided on at a very particular time, from an emotional perspective too: the March lockdown,” said Francesca Lavazza, Lavazza Group Board Member. “Around us we wanted the people from the Lavazza universe and beyond, and together we worked to inspire suggestions, themes and ideas that can convey the sense of a new humanity”.
Christy Lee Roger
“Everyday people can be transformed into angelic creatures with the slightest change of perspective, by using tools in new ways and allowing our mistakes to guide us toward new truths”.
Denis Rouvre
“I imagined this new humanity as a return to the origins of the world. A fanciful vision in which man is one with nature”.
Carolyn Drake
“We get caught up in the systems that differentiate and divide people and places. I wanted to make a picture that gets rid of the categories for a moment and stands as a kind of monument or reminder that people, the natural world, and the human made world are intertwined”.
Charlie Davoli
Ami Vitale “Nature has sent us a strong message and reminded us of just how small and deeply interconnected our world is. It is a powerful moment to reimagine our relationship to nature and to one another. We need to take care of this planet and to protect existing habitats”.
“Only on us depends the future that we want to build”.
Martin Schoeller “Let’s try to understand one another beyond words, beyond ideas even, just by our shared humanity. And what is a better mirror of ourselves, of who we are, than our eyes? Maybe viscerally, through eye contact, we can achieve a higher understanding of one another.”
“No longer man but human being, no longer a world at the centre of the Universe, in conflict and competition with the natural environment, but humanity aware of being an important part of it”.
David LaChapelle
“With authenticity, to serve the world and serve the people beautiful goods without the greed and abuse of Mother Earth and her inhabitants “.
Martha Cooper
“During the many months of sheltering at home, I photographed a steady parade of people of all ages wearing masks walking, running, rolling by and sitting on my bench. The sight has been life affirming. I hope we can apply this new awareness of our common humanity to other serious problems facing the world”.
Joey L “It is not the richest who wins, but the most mentally dedicated”.
