Pollution 1972

“Iris Ceramica believes that problems with quality of life are already having a major impact on industry in Italy, and that they will become of key importance in the near future” - Romano Minozzi, Iris Ceramica’s Chairman.
It was in the seventies that Iris Ceramica came up with the idea of Pollution, a revolutionary artistic project reflecting on pollution, as an act of political, social and environmental accusation.
In Bologna’s Piazza Santo Stefano, from October 8 to 14 1972, Gianni Sassi, artistic director and instigator of the whole project, appointed 26 artists to draw the horizons of an ecological conscience and represent 26 different “ways of responding to mutant nature”.
Mario Ceroli, Ugo La Pietra, Armando Marrocco, Claudio Parmiggiani, Gianni Ruffi and the UFO Group realized some of the installations in the square, which had been paved over with ceramic surfaces representing lumps of soil, made by the company especially for the occasion.
The same image appeared on the cover of Franco Battiato’s album Pollution, released in the same year; the musician performed at the exhibition on its closing day.
Pollution was portrayed as the product of the capitalist system: in a vicious circle, unrestricted growth in consumerism all over the world was condemning society to collapse. This loss of control of consumption inherently led to loss of control of human social processes.
The theoretical foundations of the exhibition project were inspired by debate about the capitalist model, by reflection on the consequences of an unhealthy system and by the first inkling of awareness of what pollution was doing.