Ten years after people first walked on the surface of Lake Iseo, the Italian city of Iseo will mark the anniversary of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's “Floating Piers“. The celebrations are scheduled for October 17 and 18, and the guest of honor will be Minister of Culture Evtim Miloshev.
On Saturday afternoon, the conference “Art - a bridge between cultures“ will be held at the Oldofredi Castle. Among the participants will be the mayor of Iseo, Riccardo Venciaruti, who will welcome the guests. The program also includes an exhibition dedicated to the “Floating Piers“, with photographs by local artists.
A Conversation on Christo's Legacy
A special video address has been prepared by Prof. Georgi Lozanov. In it, he will talk about the lessons from the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude and the ability of their art to transform a specific place into a common experience for people from different countries.
Bogdan Patashev from the Department for International Cooperation at the Ministry of Culture will also talk about Christo's work. At the end of the conference, the floor will be given to Evtim Miloshev, who will deliver an official welcome.
The celebrations are being held with the assistance of Ursula Hofter Zuccoli, Ambassador of the Sovereign Order of Malta in Bulgaria.
The installation attracted over a million visitors
„Floating Piers“ were opened to the public on June 18, 2016 and remained on Lake Iseo for 16 days – until July 3. The floating walkways, covered with orange-yellow textile, were about 3 kilometers long and connected Sulzano with Monte Isola and the island of San Paolo.
According to various estimates, over 1 million people visited the temporary work. After its dismantling, no permanent monument remains on site, but according to local authorities, the project is changing the international reputation of the area. "Today we are also known in the United States," Iseo Mayor Riccardo Venciaruti told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
Evtim Miloshev himself described Christo and Jeanne-Claude as "a symbol of freedom and art that has reached millions" during a cultural event in Paris in June 2026. The anniversary in Iseo will bring together the memory of one of the two artists' largest temporary installations with a conversation about the role of art as a space for the encounter between cultures.
Sources: brescia.corriere.it, giornaledibrescia.it, vocecamuna.it