Prato Sesia: Supervulcano Info Point – opening of Angela Badino’s exhibition

RATO SESIA: SUPERVULCANO INFO POINT – OPENING OF ANGELA BADINO’S EXHIBITION

Verde Fenera: illustrations of selected plant species from the protected mountain

On 27, 28 and 29 July, the Sesia Val Grande Geopark Association hosted an interesting exhibition at the Supervolcano Info Point in Prato Sesia: “Verde Fenera. Graphic representations of some botanical species from the protected mountain”, featuring works by Angela Badino, an artist and botanist from Vercelli who used to be a teacher and now lives in Spain. Last year, Angela Badino exhibited at the Library in Varallo: “The Soul of Trees”, which was a great success, a feat she repeated in Madrid.
Following an introduction by Alice Freschi and Piera Mazzone, Angela Badino thanked the Sesia Val Grande Geopark Association for enabling her to organise the exhibition, and in particular the Association’s vice-president, Marinella Merlo, Ilaria, Alice, Piera, and the audience present – which included no fewer than two botanists, Gianfranco Rotti from Varallo and Adriano Soldano from Vercelli – explaining how she came to develop this form of close dialogue with nature: “In the late 1980s, together with the Vercelli-based botanist Adriano Soldano, we carried out a botanical survey on Mount Fenera, drawing on and comparing our findings with studies previously conducted by Biroli, Carestia and Mario Soster. In the mountain’s sedimentary area, around four hundred vascular species were recorded, including a few exotic species, and no fewer than five species emerged that had never before been reported in the province of Vercelli, along with several others previously unrecorded in the Valsesia. The research was published in the *Rivista Piemontese di Storia Naturale*, issue 10 of 1989. It was precisely at that time that I began, almost as a pastime, to draw some of the plants I was observing, and that is where my passion for botanical drawing was born. From simple ink drawings, I moved on to ink pointillism, to which I added colour using watercolours or pastels to create a more personalised interpretation.”
Each species is accompanied by a fact sheet containing some essential botanical information and a literary quotation, thus bridging the gap between the worlds of science and the humanities. Brief notes on the origin of the name pique the interest of visitors as they encounter these artistic reinterpretations of reality, which go beyond botanical drawing in the strict sense—reserved for atlases or scientific publications: it is a way of bringing people closer to the magical world of botany, and above all to the wonders of Nature.

Piera Mazzone