Beyond Walls: Saype’s Italian debut

“Only together, hand in hand, will we be able to overcome the greatest challenges of our time.” 

These words are by Saype, French-Swiss artist and painter of Beyond Walls, the Land Art project that arrived in Turin on 1 October 2020. A project supported by the Lavazza Group in collaboration with the municipality of Turin and its Royal Museums.

Within the spellbinding setting of the Archaeological Park at Turin’s Palatine Gate, Saype brought to life a work of art that sprawls over 6,000 m². This enormous painting is a celebration of solidarity, resilience and respect for the environment which figuratively connects the city of Turin with the rest of the world.

The Beyond Walls project began in June 2019 with the objective to symbolically create the largest human chain on the planet. With grass for the canvas, Saype painted a pair of hands that intertwined and clasped one another. This simple gesture symbolises how we humans can reach across the walls set before us, the walls that separate us or rather enclose us within mental or geographical compartments.

“At Lavazza, art is a universal language that has the ability to create experience to inspire and bring people together. The collaboration with Saype began in 2018 thanks to the Lavazza Calendar project…The ‘Beyond Walls’ project by Saype represents a further step in our work on sustainability both in terms of the environment and of society… Saype is a young, new, avant-garde artist and with his genuine approach and artistic skills is able to interpret the concept of a new humanity,” stated Francesca Lavazza, board member of Lavazza Group. “

Beyond Walls is an ephemeral work of art: the technique invented by Saype for painting on grass uses completely biodegradable colours, reducing the environmental impact to a minimum, the colours fading over time as the grass goes through its normal growth cycle.

The Beyond Walls project in Turin also displays Saype’s first solo show in Italy, which was on show in Turin’s Royal Museums at the Sabauda Gallery and can be visited until the 13^th of April 2021.

Following its exhibit in Paris, Berlin, the Monument to National Heroes in Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, and Turin, to name just a few places, Beyond Walls has kept on going with the aim of bringing together over twenty different cities around the world and creating one vast human chain. In fact, after the Istanbul edition, Saype chose to return once more to Cape Town, Africa, to spread his message to every continent.

 An undisputed pioneer in the art movement, Saype, along with a team of his childhood friends who join him in traveling the world and creating, wish to spread a universal message of hope through positive works of art.

Saype knows one thing for sure: only together will we be able to overcome the greatest challenges of our time.