Petra Zublasing, an Italian visual artist and Olympian competing in sport shooting, has joined @creative.fellowship’s virtual Collection of Happiness art exhibition project as an independent curator.
Petra Zublasing has been an Olympic athlete for nearly two decades, travelling the world and representing Italy in several Games. In 2018, she completely changed the direction of her interests and began developing her creative side. That same year,Ms. Zublasing enrolled in studies of visual communications at the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) in Turin, Italy. Today, Ms. Zublasing is a well-developed artist with deep knowledge of both the language and specific techniques used in the various areas of application. She has a wide range of talents, from children’s to scientific illustrations, cartoons, animation, and design for traditional publishing and advertising.
Petra’s duties as the project’s art curator include designing the exhibition’s overall look, selecting artworks submitted in response to the public open call, and promoting the project to relevant stakeholders in order to bring attention to art as a community-building tool.
Over the past ten weeks, in parallel with a group of @creative.fellowship scholars taught by the educators from the History of Art Foundation, Petra has been looking into the development of the concept of happiness in different cultures. As a member of the exhibition selection committee, she will be looking for artworks related to the topic of happiness in any style within such categories as painting, drawing, photography, fashion design, animation, or digital art.
“While researching the concept of happiness, I explored examples which overlap in cultures. And one of the main words that kept coming up in relation to happiness was TRADITION. Tradition in folk dance, fashion, crafting, food – these were linked to descriptions of happiness. The second strong trend actually reflects the origins of the Latin word Felicitas (Happiness). In ancient Roman culture, Felicitas was a goddess who found happiness in her seven children. This connection, of mother to child, and child to mother, often resurfaced in my surveys. If I had to generalize, I would say, Happiness is about people and how they interact with each other. I am very curious to see how young people from so many different countries perceive what happiness these days is. I fear selecting only 40 artworks will be a real challenge,” – says Petra Zublasing, explaining her approach to curating the Collection of Happiness.
The virtual exhibition Collection of Happiness is run as a part of the @cretaive.fellowship partnership with the Salzburg Festival’s “Jung&Jed*r” program for children and youth in collaboration with the SAAS Gallery, London.
To view Petra Zublasing’s portfolio, please go to: https://petrazublasing.myportfolio.com
