Orto Botanico di Padova

Windows on Elsewhere. 60 views for 60 refugees
2025-05-01 - 2025-08-03
Refugees have been uprooted, had their existences ripped away, turned upside down, and brutally transplanted to another soil, a different environment, a different climate, ecosystem…Putting down roots can be about the condition of the refugee, but - in the end - about the universal condition of all those who find themselves experiencing the drama of uprooting and must attempt, in some way, to start again. A painful, exhausting process, but one that leaves open a glimpse of hope. (Martina Bastianello)THURSDAY 1 MAY – SUNDAY 3 AUGUST 2025
Exhibition
in collaboration with Amnesty International Italia
Included in the admission ticket
Sixty views. Sixty stories. Sixty refugee people who, together with the architect and illustrator Matteo Pericoli, have transformed a window into a visual and personal storytelling. Windows on Elsewhere is a project conceived by Bill Shipsey, founder of Art for Human Rights, and Matteo Pericoli, created between 2018 and 2021 in support of Amnesty International.
The exhibition brings together sixty original drawings made by Pericoli, each accompanied by the intimate story of someone who faced uprooting, loss, but also with rebirth in a new land. The idea of bringing this experience to the Botanical Garden of Padua was the brainchild of Martina Bastianello, who caught a profound dialogue between the project and the Botanical Garden’s plant heritage. Just like the trees evoked with poignant affection in the refugees’ stories, the windows of the exhibition overlook memories, identities and hopes. Many write about the trees of their childhood and the new trees they observe today – a green, living thread connecting past and present.
Linneo’s inverted linden tree – capable of turning branches into roots – becomes symbolic of refugee conditions: upside-down lives trying to put down new roots in other soil. It’s a powerful metaphor that also speaks to anyone experiencing profound change, relocation, and reconstruction.
As Gianni Rufini – former director of Amnesty International Italia – wrote:
“Not only that eyes see, but that they see through other eyes: eyes that are neither ‘ours’ nor ‘theirs’, but common eyes, shared glances…”. Windows on Elsewhere invites exactly this: to look at the world through different eyes, allowing ourselves to be touched by stories that affect us all.
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an independent global movement of more than 10 million people committed to defending human rights. It exposes violations, pressures governments and companies to comply with international law, and mobilizes activists around the world to promote justice, freedom and dignity. Through campaigns, concrete actions and human rights education, it has been working for a more equitable world for more than 50 years, fighting discriminations, torture, repression of dissent and defending the rights of refugees and migrants.
Matteo Pericoli
Matteo Pericoli is an architect, author, illustrator and teacher. His work has been published in numerous national and international newspapers and magazines. In 2007 he completed Skyline of the World, a 120-meter mural for the American Airlines terminal at JFK International Airport. His books have been published in Italy, France, the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. The latest is Il grande museo vivente dell’immaginazione. Guida all’esplorazione dell’architettura letteraria (The Great Living Museum of Imagination. A Guide to Exploring Literary Architecture) (Il Saggiatore). In Turin in 2010 he founded the Laboratorio di architettura letteraria (Literary Architecture Lab).
Art for Human Rights
Art for Human Rights brings together artists from all disciplines to raise awareness of human rights violations. We use art to inspire action so that freedom, equality and dignity become a reality for all.

Risvegli. La festa dei fiori
2025-05-01 09:00 - 2025-05-04 20:00 (Europe/Rome)
Risvegli. La festa dei fiori – the spring festival of the world’s oldest Botanical Garden – returns from May 1 to 4, offering a wide range of meetings and lectures, performances and workshops for all ages, between scientific research and daily care, entertainment and information.
Inexhaustible source of knowledge, inspiration for art and literature, natural resource, flowers and plants are the protagonists of an authentic garden of wonders suspended between scents and colors. A multisensory journey with activities suitable for everyone, under the banner of Nature and culture.
During the festival’s days, the Botanical Garden remains exceptionally open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. (last entry 6.15 p.m.).
Risvegli 2025 is organised by Padua Botanical Garden with the generous support of Fondazione Cariparo.

Sites of Botanical Knowledge Production
2025-05-22 - 2025-05-23
From May 22 to 23, 2025, the Botanical Theatre will host the international convention “Sites of Early Modern Botanical Knowledge Production”, dedicated to exploring the sites of studies and dissemination of botanical knowledge in the modern age.
The meeting aims to investigate not only institutional spaces and actors, such as academic botanical gardens, but also the lesser-known stories of private botanical gardens, their promoters and their role in plant knowledge and circulation.
Attendance is free, by registration.
The convention is an initiative of the DiSSGeA – Department of Historical, Geographical and Ancient Sciences – in collaboration with the Botanical Garden, the MoHu Center, the University of Padua Center for Museums and Dumbarton Oaks. It is organized by Elena Canadelli, scientific director of the Botanical Museum; Florike Egmond, historian of science and expert in botanical iconography; and Anatole Tchikine, curator of historic gardens and architectural historian, with a specialization on Italy in the Modern Age.
REGISTRATION
CONFERENCE PROGRAM

Petit Frère
2025-07-31 19:00 - 20:30
On Wednesday, July 30, at 7 p.m., the Botanical Garden of Padua will feature Petit frère, an acrobatic circus show involving, thanks to the company T’es rien sans la Terre, five acrobats from different companies (Circus Baobab & Cirque Mandingue from Guinea, Cirque du Soleil and Circo Fantazztico from Costa Rica). They explore obstacles, encounters and solidarity in an endless journey toward a better life, in search of an insurmountable Eldorado.
Authentic stories of acrobats, with different origins and life paths, reveal unbreakable bonds and confront the daily life of Western man, which is increasingly steeped in superficiality. In a world where excess and the conquest of new goals have taken over, there emerges the loneliness of the individual who simultaneously discovers the importance of living together with others. In this performance, the parallel universes of the antagonists intertwine through a moving structure that comes alive on stage, allegorically revealing the physical, virtual and psychological boundaries we raise between us.
Participation at the event is included in the entrance fee to the Botanical Garden, which can be visited from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Tickets can be purchased online or at the Botanical Garden’s ticket office, which is open Tuesday through Sunday and holidays from 10 a.m. to 6:15 p.m., and on Wednesday, July 30 – on the occasion of the show – until 7 p.m.
Online reservations are required to attend the event by filling out the registration form.
In case of bad weather, the event is made up on Thursday, July 31.
T'es rien sans la Terre
T’es rien sans la Terre is a contemporary circus performance company that brings together artists committed to the environment and uses art, poetic imagery and humor to talk about the Earth. Since 2020, the group has been inviting audiences to question the future of the planet and take a small step toward change.
Online ticketSign up

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