Davide Azzalini: Giardini di fosfato (Phosphate Gardens)

On November 5, the National Pavilion of Nauru at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia – presents singer-songwriter Davide Azzalini with the musical performance "Giardini di fosfato" (Phosphate Gardens), inspired by the pavilion itself.

The Nauru Pavilion, making its debut at the Biennale, presents this event as part of its satellite event program. This program is founded on an archipelago-based thinking and a philosophical and geopolitical vision capable of overcoming the logics of isolation and fragmentation, in order to rediscover the Earth as a single interconnected system of shared conditions.

Nauru, the smallest island state in the world, strained by erosion caused by colonial exploitation of phosphates and rising sea levels, offers a profound opportunity for reflection on the present and the future. Its history, which stands as a global warning, inspired the new unreleased song by Davide Azzalini, "Giardini di fosfato" (Phosphate Gardens).

An intense and disenchanted poetry, the song features Azzalini's signature on both the lyrics and the music, combining a deep textual narrative with an impactful sonic texture. The piece offers a lucid snapshot of a society starved for resources at all costs.
"One must take and devastate / Not even a corner is left for singing," he writes, while the chorus repeats "The smell of kerosene invades the city / It gives death and to someone then happiness". In this global warning, there is no shortage of references to tourist extractivism that is marking the city of Venice itself, with verses such as "Smoking dreams in tired buildings / Crossing alleys out of breath". About society, he says that "In a behavior by now collapsed / There was a limit but it is good that it went". In a bitter picture, with passages like "There are streets to look at again / To reread or place / To dye perhaps or color", it also opens up to the possibility of taking new directions.

The performance will be completed by the instrumental piece "For Nauru".

The meeting with Davide Azzalini was born almost by chance, but there are coincidences that turn into synchronicity. We are particularly happy that a local singer-songwriter, currently living in Lido of Venice, has chosen to bring his work into this context. His performance fits perfectly within the philosophy of the Nauru Pavilion, connecting geographically distant realities that are nevertheless united by the consequences of resource exploitation and the environmental challenges of our time. Through the comparison and sharing of a thought and a vision, Nauru and Venice become starting points for a common reflection on our relationship with the Earth and the future we share.

Davide Azzalini is a guitarist and singer-songwriter born among the mountains of northern Italy. His artistic identity matured mainly abroad, playing in informal settings, among ports and clubs of the cities visited during his years of sea routes, thanks to 18 years spent in the merchant navy.
His guitar style, characterized by the use of electric and resonator guitars, blends folk and country sounds with clear influences ranging from fingerpicking to the tradition of great songwriting. His writing stands out for a strong intimate and introspective dimension, capable of translating into verses the journey, the distance, the work at sea, and personal search.

The National Pavilion of Nauru presents until November 22 "AIM Inundated: Imagining Life After Land", curated by Khaled Ramadan, with associate curators Camilla Boemio and Stefano Cagol and the participation of Kauw Tsitsi, CPS (Khaled Ramadan and Alfredo Cramerotti), Patricia Jacomella Bonola, Tedo Rekhviashvili, Sylvia Grace Borda, Ron Laboray, Dorian Batycka, Khaled Hafez, Iv Toshain and Stefano Cagol.