For more than a decade, VISIBLE has championed a different vision of contemporary art—one that measures impact not by visibility alone, but by its ability to engage with the realities of everyday life. This year, during Art Basel in Basel, ZEGNA and VISIBLE announced the recipient of the 2026 VISIBLE Situated Fellowship: GOODLand, a community-based artistic and environmental platform founded by artist Martha Atienza on Bantayan Island in the Philippines.
The fellowship marks the latest chapter in a longstanding collaboration between VISIBLE and Fondazione Zegna, one rooted in the belief that art can operate far beyond exhibition spaces. Rather than rewarding a single artwork or exhibition, the fellowship supports artist-led initiatives embedded within communities, offering long-term resources to projects addressing some of the most urgent social and environmental challenges of our time.
At a moment when conversations around sustainability, climate resilience, and collective responsibility are becoming increasingly urgent, GOODLand represents a model of artistic practice that is inseparable from the place it serves.
A Fellowship Focused on Long-Term Impact
Chirara Camoni, Installation view of “Colonne” at the 61st Italian Pavilion, 2025. Courtesy of ZEGNA.
Founded by Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto and developed under the vision of Michelangelo Pistoletto, VISIBLE has spent years exploring how artistic practices can contribute to social transformation. Since 2022, the initiative has evolved from its award format into a series of Situated Fellowships, designed to provide sustained support to organizations working directly within communities.
In 2024, VISIBLE partnered with ZEGNA to launch a new cycle of fellowships dedicated to socially engaged artistic practices around the world. The collaboration reflects values long embedded within ZEGNA’s history, particularly through Oasi Zegna, the expansive natural territory in the Biella Alps envisioned by founder Ermenegildo Zegna. Beginning in the 1930s, he transformed the surrounding landscape through large-scale reforestation efforts, planting more than half a million trees and creating a model where nature, culture, and community could coexist.
That legacy continues to inform ZEGNA’s cultural platform, ZEGNART, which brings together the brand’s ongoing commitment to art, environmental awareness, and social responsibility. Rather than treating artistic initiatives as standalone projects, ZEGNART positions them as part of a broader cultural vision shaped by long-term thinking and stewardship.
GOODLand’s Vision for Collective Care
Martha Atienza, founder of GOODLand, recipient of the 2026 VISIBLE Situated Fellowship. Courtesy of ZEGNA.
Founded in 2020 by artist Martha Atienza, GOODLand has emerged as a unique intersection of artistic practice, ecological advocacy, and community engagement. Based on Bantayan Island in the Visayas region of the Philippines, the platform operates through close collaboration with local fisherpeople, farmers, institutions, and residents.
Its work spans research, education, advocacy, and participatory initiatives, all rooted in local environmental knowledge and cultural traditions. At the center of GOODLand’s mission is an understanding of the seabed as a living ecosystem—an underwater forest whose protection is essential to the future of coastal communities.
Daniel Buren, “Le Banderuole colorate.” Courtesy of ZEGNA.
The urgency of that mission is difficult to overstate. The Philippine archipelago remains among the regions most vulnerable to climate instability and increasingly powerful super-typhoons. In response, GOODLand has developed projects that address both environmental preservation and community resilience, creating systems of care that connect people to the landscapes and waters on which their livelihoods depend.
Atienza’s own artistic practice is deeply intertwined with this work. Through video, participatory methodologies, and collaborative research, she documents the realities of island life while helping to build a shared ecological and cultural imagination centered on coexistence and sustainability.
Art as a Tool for Sustaining the Future, with ZEGNART
Alberto Garutti, “DEDICATO ALLE PERSONE CHE SEDENDOSI QUI NE PARLERANNO
(DEDICATED TO THE PEOPLE WHO, SITTING HERE, WILL SPEAK OF IT),” 2009, concrete bench sculpture. Courtesy of ZEGNA.
The 2026 fellowship will help expand several of GOODLand’s ongoing initiatives. Among them are programs designed to reduce pollution associated with compressor diving through rechargeable flashlight systems, as well as regular coastal and underwater clean-up efforts aimed at protecting fragile marine ecosystems.
What distinguishes the fellowship is its emphasis on continuity rather than spectacle. The goal is not simply to highlight a project during the art world calendar, but to provide meaningful support that allows communities and artists to continue their work over time.
That philosophy is perhaps best captured in VISIBLE’s guiding premise. As the organization states, the question is no longer what art can represent, but what art can sustain.
Zegna Milan Headquarters. Courtesy of Zegna.
The selection of GOODLand offers a compelling answer. Through environmental stewardship, local knowledge-sharing, and collective action, the initiative demonstrates how artistic practice can function as a catalyst for long-term resilience. In doing so, it expands the possibilities of what contemporary art can be—not simply an object of contemplation, but a framework for care, participation, and transformation.
As Art Basel gathers the global art community in Basel this week, the announcement serves as a reminder that some of the most consequential artistic work happening today may be taking place far from the fair halls themselves, embedded in communities where creativity and responsibility are deeply intertwined.
