In the Sicilian countryside, ElasetesalE, a palindrome work composed of bottomless bottles designed ad hoc by Giuseppe Arezzi, celebrates water as a primary good to be preserved

Owners of the small, familiar and authentic hotel N'orma in the Sicilian countryside of Chiaramonte Gulfi (in the province of Ragusa), Andreina Iebole and Maurizio Di Gregorio, some years ago, found they had 150 bottles without their normal green glass bases, made to have been used for a project that never got off the ground.

In the autumn of 2021, the Ragusan designer Giuseppe Arezzi was asked to propose his own own personal interpretation of the containers set aside (but never forgotten) and left unused. Thus was born the installation - rural and circular - site specific ElasetesalE.

Read also: Giuseppe Arezzi's Si! Sicilia exhibition in Ragusa Ibla from 4th to 21st August

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A line of bottles

ElasetesalE is a palindrome work (in configuration and name), two-faced and (almost) circular: a linear and thin structure 15.55 meters long consisting of 102 bottles, one inside the other, with the whole resting horizontally on slim iron trestles.

Water collected and returned

The water flows inside the glass containers and then into a large funnel set up in the ground, which collects it and pushes it back into the circuit, without dispersion. The whole is operated by a simple red tap connected to a water system.

The bottle as a perfect anonymous object

“The bottle I was shown is a perfect, anonymous object. It was enough to introduce it into the agricultural landscape and connect it to the few purely rural buildings, now a hotel and the residence of the owners” explains Giuseppe Arezzi.

Raw authenticity

“ElasetesalE is of raw authenticity, fully immersed in its context, without any infatuation with the past or any other predictable tradition; recognizable to those who live in these places and also to those who discover them; contemporary in its essence.

Water as a primary good

“The installation is a celebration of water as a primary commodity to be preserved and not wasted. In its intrinsic contradiction, here it is the bottle that pours the liquid into the funnel and not viceversa, so as to return it to the earth from whose sources it springs.

A message

“ElasetesalE (it means: and thirst is increasing) is a message in itself: drought on our planet will bring thirst and overheating is not caused by the scarcity of water: it is the lack of knowledge and respect for the environment that we inhabit which is the problem” concludes Arezzi.