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Upcycling: “the creative reuse, the process of transforming waste materials, useless or unwanted products into new materials or products of better quality”. Advertising produces an impressive amount of generally non-toxic waste. Paradoxically, advertising that does not end up in waste is more toxic. 28 types of non-toxic waste, 28 headlines, written by 28 of the most well-known and affirmed Italian copywriters, rejected by 28 companies, probably for 28 different reasons. Written with the Olivetti Lettera 22 or with the MacBook between 1984 and 2016, they are words that have been underestimated, considered unsuitable, ineffective, inadequate or inappropriate. Daniele Cima has retrieved them from virtual or real waste baskets and given them new life, shape and colour (a lot of colour), taking them from the commercial to the artistic dimension. The artist has retrieved, decontextualized and charged the headlines with new, unexpected meanings. Thus, the words that have been transformed into images, resuming a discussion initiated by futurists a hundred years ago now and at the same time looking ahead and beyond, to the possibility of also reconverting the immaterial, the precious fruit of intellectual energy. Daniele Cima transforms words into high semantic density planets, with new rules detached from the previous life. He uses a graphic alphabet made of signs, plays with extreme freedom with the typeface. Departing from photography he produces a reverberation of essence and introspection, as if the words through the graphics are able to dive into themselves. Upcycled Words represents a second life, full of surprising interpretations unknown to the authors themselves, a visual and literary peaceful revolution fought under the banner of upcycling, a contribution to the cause of sustainability by recycling immaterial assets, a varied melting pot consisting of art, advertising, cultural ecology, literature and artwork, assembled in creative and imaginative forms.

 

The project has been realized with the contribution of Eugenio Alberti Schatz, Sofia Ambrosini, Bruno Bertelli, Enrico Bonomini, Ambrogio Borsani, Francesco Bozza, Marco Calaprice, Stefano Campora, Chiara Castiglioni, Aldo Cernuto, Enrico Chiarugi, Andrea Concato, Vicky Gitto, Emilio Haimann, Marina Mander, Anna Montefusco, Alessandro Omini, Roberto Parisi, Renata Prevost, Daniele Ravenna, Simonetta Roncaglia, Alberta Schiatti, Luca Scotto di Carlo, Roberta Sollazzi, Giovanni Salvaggio, Andrea Stillacci, Aldo Tanchis and Nicola Zanardi.

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