Installation a call for help over plastic waste

ROME - Reuters

REU Photo

Five million brightly colored plastic bottle tops have been laid out on a Mediterranean island, spelling the word “HELP” in an art installation that aims to draw attention to marine pollution. 

The work, symbolizing the “Age of Plastic,” was created by Italian artist Maria Cristina Finucci and opened on Sept. 25 on the tiny island of Mozia, just off the coast of Sicily. The project is part of a broader initiative that Finucci has been working on since 2013, entitled the “Garbage Patch State,” which highlights concern over the accumulation of plastic waste in oceans and seas that threatens marine life and biodiversity. Carried by winds and currents, plastic particles have amalgamated with other debris to form gigantic, swirling patches, or gyres, in the world’s oceans. The United Nations has estimated that they might cover as much as 16 million square kilometers of sea. The millions of bottle tops are clustered together in huge mesh cases, some of them four meters high, that form giant letters on the sun soaked landscape and are lit up at night. They lie adjacent to ruins dating back to the civilizations of ancient Rome and Carthage, following a similar contour to the piles of weather-worn stone.

The word ‘HELP’ is only visible from the air. The Mozia installation will remain open until Jan. 8, 2017