The Vagabond Tree and the waste emergency in Campania (Italy)

PR Log (Press Release) – Jun 02, 2009 – The Vagabond Tree, the Keeper of the Mountains, will start its journey through the Irpinia and Campania mountains, on Friday 5th June, at 9.00 am, in S. Stefano del Sole (AV), in the Monti Picentini Park.
The Vagabond Tree is a “pittoscultura” created by the sculptor, painter and etcher Giovanni Spiniello (’68 Venice Biennal,’75 Rome Quadriennal, Recommended by Enrico Crispolti on the Bolaffi Catalogue, “La seduzione dell’artigianato”, by Arch. E. Censon, e V. Selan, Rome ’90) and after a brief Christmas rest on the roofs of the buildings in the historical centre of  Avellino, it keeps on travelling (next step: S. Stefano del Sole). The International Giffoni Film Festival is waiting for it, on 13th July, where the younger members of the Panel will help it to make its plea.
This idea, conceived and planned by the “Associazione Culturale Giovanni Spinello”, was born from the will to focus institutions and citizens’attention on the issue of the leaving of waste materials in the mountains. Moreover, it calls upon us to think on the widespread lack of civic mind by those same citizens, when using the Irpinian and Campanian environmental resources. This happening  develops and recovers the artist’s ‘60s engagement in social issues, melting together art, didactics and technical experimentation during the steps of the happening.
The project, in Santo Stefano, is divided into four steps: participation, making people aware, action, assessment. The first step has meant the involvement of the administrative partner. During the second step, schools, teachers and students have shown their enthousiastical participation and cooperation on the project, developing a “waste map” of the mountains. On 5th June, during the Color Party, the Maestro Giovanni Spiniello will help children create some wooden boards on the defense and safeguard of the mountain. In Summer,  the Environment Local Department will organize some activities in order to clean, partially at least, the sites identified by the children. Finally, in September, the Vagabond Tree will come back to S. Stefano del Sole and it will lead the children to hang their works, made during the Colour Party, on the trees of the cleaned sites.
The Vagabond Tree is an installation made up of "polluting" material (polyurethane), waste matter, virdigris, natural material (brushwood, branches, shrubs, leaves).
It has been partially made using the same waste material that citizens leave in the mountains, along the streets or the river banks, showing absolute contempt for the people who will inherit this land: our children

Web page: http://www.giovannispiniello.it/english/albero.asp