Opiyaya (Barnabus) – sculpture

The elephant is truly amazing: the great physical strength that becomes spiritual. The grandeur that contrasts the delicacy of the gestures. The huge mass that moves silently, even in water. The sweet and intimate sociability, combined with the unequal destructive power in the animal world, capable of redesigning the environment with gates, roads and wells, where necessary. He is an animal full of contradictions, like life, and perhaps this is his charm. A presence that teaches us to manage extremes, to remove obstacles and open passages …

Barnabus, by the artist Daniele Basso, is an elephant portrayed when all the virtues enunciated are not yet able to express them. When as a child he only possesses the extraordinary potential of childhood: to be the guardian of everything and nothing. Like us today… at the gates of a new beginning. Forced to relearn how to be in the world. To abandon false certainties to embrace the risk of life. To accept the impossibility of controlling events, but only the possibility of respecting others and the environment, turning the soul with confidence to change, the only true constant in life. To remove all obstacles, even when the obstacle is ourselves, towards a better future in which to live. For us. For our children. For our grandchildren!