In June 2021, our Conversation at HeART project was brought to life in a new location – and new country – for Foundever®: Greece. Our brand-new Foundever hub in Athens, Greece greeted associates with Grecian artwork in the country’s first location.
From Paris to Barranquilla to São Paulo, this month we head to southeast Europe to explore the large, bright lobby which was designed with smooth curves and a fresh canvas for the artist.
The Conversation at HeART project was met with great enthusiasm by the local team. Naturally, the Greek team decided to commission a Greek artist to work their magic on the almost 7-meter-long wall within the hub’s lobby, which is visible from the entrance and acts as a corridor into the production floor, or work spaces.
“Our culture is truly what differentiates us at Foundever and the experience for our employees is what sets the tone for our culture,” said Benedita Miranda, General Manager of Portugal, Italy and Greece, Foundever. “The Conversation at HeART initiative is just one of the many ways we’re improving the experience for our people, and we’re so happy to have this within our new location in Greece. We’re so excited to bring this space to life with this beautiful artwork which exemplifies the Greek culture so well.”
To mark the arrival of Foundever in Greece, the country leader directed our art advisor with a fairly precise brief: find an artist that celebrates the Greek culture through local materials, colors and subjects.
Among the four very different proposals the team received, the team chose Greek artist Fikos for this mural. Fikos submitted five different drafts with five approaches to the artwork to bring the idea of conversation and connection to others. The selected draft appealed a lot to the team because of the way it gathered many different ways of communicating, connecting and conveying a message. It illustrated traditional methods such as speaking and oral language, carrier birds or books. And it conveyed contemporary methods such as telephones, laptops and satellites. Further, there are elements of Greek mythology intertwined into the piece such as winged sandals worn by Hermes, the messenger of the Gods.
Fikos began painting the mural in mid-June and worked on it for about two weeks. He chose the soft color pallet, the pastels, to complement the building. He used light blue, pale pink, grey and beige; an extraordinary amount of details and shades were added with a small brush. The curve of the wall along with the way the characters fill in the space, as an unfinished story, contribute to give the impression of an immersive artwork: a one-of-a-kind and welcoming invitation to enter the Foundever hub in Athens, Greece.