(New York City) Earlier this month, the Vatican sponsored a pop-up art exhibit, Art for Laudato Si: Organic for All, in Manhattan’s SoHo district to highlight Pope Francis’s worldwide call to care for the earth as our common home.  

In Art for Laudato Si: Organic for All, Manhattan-based artist and environmentalist Delphinoto collaborated with the Vatican Dicastery for Integral Human Development and Laudato Si Action Platform to present works of art inspired by Laudato Si’. The exhibit included over thirty-five works from Delphinoto, several works from local artists, and a children’s art room with works from two local Catholic schools. The five rooms in the exhibition were entitled: “NYC,” “Praise Be,” “Climate Changing,” “Be Like Children,” and “Breaking Bread.”  

The show drew 200 visitors and aimed to guide them through a visual narrative, echoing the spirit of Laudato Si’ and ultimately inspiring a call to action.  

Delphinoto originally launched Art for Laudato Si in 2021. With memories of Hurricane Sandy still reverberating through the streets of Little Italy, he was “moved by one million people in NYC facing food insecurity at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic,” and was inspired to take action.  

He set up a community fridge on Mott Street, symbolizing a beacon of hope and solidarity, and painted a mural of Pope Francis calling for Universal Basic Income (UBI). This was alongside another mural envisioning how UBI could be designed to simultaneously address climate change, save mom-and-pop shops, and embody Pope Francis’s plea for “Food for All.” 

This month’s exhibit coincided with the Pope’s planned trip to Dubai for the COP28 meeting on climate change prior to the Pope canceling his trip due to illness. Pope Francis laid out his environmental message in his landmark encyclical letter Laudato Si’, published in 2015. 

To learn more about Art for Laudato Si, visit the artist’s website: organicforall.love.