the ‘Scart’ tree of the Pisa Foundation lights up
On the afternoon of Wednesday 7 December, the Christmas tree of the Pisa Foundation was lit up, created in partnership with ‘Scart’ (Gruppo Hera); the event was attended by the public and the students who collaborated to collect the materials and to make the decorations. A strong call toresponsible use of plastic and, above all, to its recovery, also and above all to counteract its dispersion in rivers and seas around the world. This is the message launched by the Christmas tree of the Pisa Foundation, signed, for the third consecutive year, by ‘Scart’, the Hera Group’s artistic laboratory where waste is transformed into works of art.
A tree, therefore, that with the waste language speaks of the urgent need for a world that is much more attentive to the use and protection of its resources. Starting with the waters, the most impacted by the abandonment of plastic. A choral work that involved over a thousand students Pisans. The students from the comprehensive city schools ‘Strenta Tongiorgi’, ‘Fucini’, ‘Toniolo’, ‘Galilei’ and from the ‘Russoli’ art school also took part in the lighting. The concept and creation of the tree were, in fact, once again this year the result of a collective effort involving over a thousand students from Pisa. Also taking part in the event were Stefano Del Corso, president of the Pisa Foundation, principals and teachers of the classes involved and Maurizio Giani, Herambiente Marketing Director, as well as curator and creator of the Scart project.
The soul of the tree, which will remain set up until January 8, 2023, is in a sense, cubist. For a height of about 9 meters, it is in fact composed of an overlapping of about 40 metal cages which contained cisterns for the transport of industrial liquids. These were then filled with plastic material collected and selected by the students of the comprehensive schools in the first half of November and decorated with artefacts, also in plastic, made by the young people of the ‘Russoli’. Inside each cage there are materials of the same type and colour, in order to create a color effect harmonious and suggestive, highlighted by the approx 2,000 LED lights around the perimeter of the containers and which will allow lighting with very low energy consumption, in full coherence with the spirit promoted by the tree.
The plastic used comes both from post-consumption (PET bottles of oil, soft drinks and water, detergent bottles, etc.) and from production waste. For example, there is a widespread use of the so-called preforms, the plastic wrappers that are heated and blown in industrial processes to then take on the most diverse shapes. Overall, it is estimated that there are over 3,000 plastic objects with which the tree is made. The decorations made by the students of the Art School are based on 70 x 70 cm wooden frames to which, thanks to a thin internal metal mesh, artifacts made from plastic material have been applied, which allow great flexibility of use. Each frame was then applied to a cage, emphasizing the play of colors and reflections between the plastic inside and outside the containers.