UNHCR and Moleskine Foundation together once more to promote the culture of the sea

The sloop Catty Sark will participate in the ARC 2019, taking up the baton from the Kleronia and hoisting the UNHCR flag to reaffirm the imperative of rescue at sea

The flag of UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is now flying on Catty Sark, one of more than 200 boats to take part in the ARC 2019, the largest international regatta that sees hundreds of sailors from across the globe cross the Atlantic Ocean from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to Santa Lucia in the Caribbean.

The initiative is a continuation of the partnership with Moleskine Foundation that began with the contemporary art exhibition Rothko in Lampedusa organized by UNHCR in conjunction with the Venice Art Biennale to promote the artistic talent of refugees, and which led to the joint participation of the two organizations with the boat Kleronia in the historic Barcolana regatta in Trieste.

For Rothko in Lampedusa, Moleskine Foundation curated a genuine 'exhibition within the exhibition' consisting of a display of artwork produced by 18 young refugees and their Italian peers on Moleskine notebooks during the itinerant workshop AtWork, Where is South?

The ARC 2019 regatta starts on the very same day that Rothko in Lampedusa closes its doors at Palazzo Querini after over six months of public and critical success, drawing some 15,000 visitors.

“Following the great experience with seafarers at the Barcolana in Trieste, UNHCR now passes the baton to another boat so that the sea might continue to be a place of relationship and not of separation," says Carlotta Sami, UNHCR Spokesperson for Southern Europe.

"We were pleased to accept the invitation to hoist the UNHCR flag on our boat, in the conviction that it might be another small sign of 'resistance' in a world that puts up ever more barriers," adds architect Francesco Felice Buonfantino, captain of Catty Sark.

During the race the sloop Catty Sark will symbolically carry the message that emerged during the Venetian leg of Where is South?

"In this historical moment in which boundaries and walls are being created to divide us, raising irrational fears and revising and/or wiping out history, we hope that the experiences and stories we bring with us will be an enrichment for all and inspire new perspectives that might fill the spaces that separate us.”

In addition to Moleskine Foundation and UNHCR, this important message has been taken up by the sailors Ambrogio Beccaria, Vittorio Malingri, Matteo Miceli and Giovanni Soldini, together with numerous entities that have contributed to the initiative on the basis of their social vocation and mission.

Buonfantino, together with Enrico Lanzillo, Stefano Mango, Daniele Fiorillo and Raffaele Portanova, will sail over 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean in 20 days, following the route that was sadly famous for the deportation of over 13 million slaves from Africa to the Americas.

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