Acqua Foundation Launches Coronavirus Fundraiser for Spallanzani Hospital

Acqua Foundation, a philanthropic nonprofit first presented at Manifesta12 in Palermo in 2018, has launched a fundraising campaign to support the Istituto Nazionale per le Malattie Infettive Spallanzani in Rome during the coronavirus pandemic. The foundation, founded by Gabriele Bonfiglioli, Aurelia Musumeci Greco, Giuseppe di Vita, Cecilia Ago, and Rosa Ciacci, originally focused on preserving water through art-driven awareness campaigns about environmental sustainability, oceans, and glaciers. Now it has redirected its efforts to the health emergency. The fundraiser, hosted on GoFundMe, aims to strengthen the Spallanzani's intensive care unit. Bonfiglioli told Artribune the initiative started spontaneously on a Sunday, leveraging the foundation's communication network. He emphasized that the Spallanzani, along with the Sacco hospital in Milan, is an Italian excellence in research and must be reinforced to handle the epidemic's spread from north to south. The foundation hopes the art world will contribute.