The new Zen Garden in Piazza Piola in Milan is named in honour of Teresa Pomodoro

A live streaming event inaugurated the new Zen Garden in honour of Teresa Pomodoro in Piazza Piola in Milan last 18 April.


Livia Pomodoro during the inauguration of the Zen Garden Teresa Pomodoro in Piazza Piola, Milan


Ceremony of inauguration of the Zen Garden Teresa Pomodoro in Piazza Piola, Milan

The regeneration project for this area was strongly supported and offered to the city by Teatro No'hma which is located in Via Orcagna, between Piola and Lambrate, a place of memory dedicated to the actress, director and dramatist. Teatro No'hma was founded in the late 1990s by Teresa Pomodoro as a free and inclusive space of utopia. Since her death in 2008, the theatre has been renovated and is now managed by her twin sister, Livia Pomodoro, who keeps the soul and spirit of the cultural institution alive through a rich and sophisticated calendar of events. 


Installation of the twenty-one cherry blossom trees


Installation of sculptures by Kengiro Azuma

The redevelopment of the Garden in Piazza Piola is expression of the strong link that the Theatre has with the urban territory to which it belongs. At the same time it is the result of a fruitful collaboration, the product of a successful osmosis between cultural and artistic reality and institutional commitment, which has emerged in a precious work of dissemination throughout the territory. The Teresa Pomodoro Zen Garden aims to be not only a space but also a shared project. For this reason, a fund-raising campaign has been launched to involve citizens and thus create a space for everyone.


MU - 765 Goccia by Kengiro Azuma

In addition to the planting of twenty-one beautiful cherry trees in bloom, the redevelopment project included a lighting design by Disano Illuminazione and the installation of pieces by Japanese artist Kengiro Azuma, who died in 2016, a Milanese by adoption and a great friend of Teresa Pomodoro. As designed by the artist's son, architect Ambrogio Azuma, the sculptures are placed on five cylindrical stages of different heights. The five elements house Colloquio, a sculpture representing two toads surprised in conversation, and MU - 765 Goccia. The drop is a tribute to the No'hma Theatre, located in the former water building. "The reference is not only iconic," says Livia Pomodoro, "but also didactic in evoking that authentic lightness that has always distinguished the vocation of this theatre". The bronze sculptures were made by the Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, a place to which the Azuma family has always been closely connected. 
 

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Colloquio by Kengiro Azuma