Celebrating the history of geothermal in Tuscany – a light installation at Larderello, Italy

As part of the celebrations this year on 200 years of geothermal energy utilisation in Larderello in Tuscany/ Italy, an impressive artistic project was initiated and show in the end of June.

The artistic project Costellazioni Larderello / Light Art by Luca Serasini was inaugurated in the end of June 2018 in the context of the celebrations of 200 years since the start of the geothermal industry , which in 1818 with Francesco Larderel saw its beginning with the activity for chemical uses, for almost a century characterized by the production of boron for the pharmaceutical industry, followed in 1904 by the first light bulbs ignited thanks to the intuition of the Prince Ginori Conti who gave way to the production of electricity.

>After the technical and scientific initiatives held between the CNR of Pisa and the Enel Green Power headquarters in Larderello on 7 and 8 May, the 200th anniversary of the anniversary, starting from 22ndJune, the anniversary was greeted with two major artistic events: end of June, infati, on the four cooling towers of Larderello it is possible to admire an intervention of a great artistic level, site-specific by the Pisan artist Luca Serasini . The project, entitled Costellazioni Larderello / light art , is curated by Eleonora Raspi and promoted by Enel Green Power under the patronage of the Municipality of Pomarance.

The idea behind the project dates back to the photographic installation created by the artist on the occasion of “M’arte Personale 2016”, a contemporary art event conceived by Pro Loco Montegemoli and organized in collaboration with Accademia Libera Natura e Cultura in the village of Montegemoli . The cooling towers (3 towers of the “Nuova Larderello” power plant and 1 tower of the power plant no longer active “Larderello 2”) were “lit” with the looping of sequences of images: each refrigerant projects a constellation drawn by the artist according to the various historical representations. From the Arab world to the seventeenth century, to the abstract interpretation of Serasini, the constellations alternate on the large towers as if to signal a precious canvas, enveloping the industrial structures and transforming them into a work of art.

The four constellations represented are the Toro, Orione, the Big Dipper (Ursa Major asterism) and Pegasus , the same ones realized by the artist from 2013 to 2017 within the Constellations Project presented in Tuscany, England and Germany. Here, in the territory of Alta Val di Cecina (the two observation points are the pitch at km 127 of SR439, and the town of Montecerboli, via Matteotti), the stars appear in the geothermal landscape surprising the observer and enriching the image overall territory.
In the pitches are also placed panels that illustrate geothermal energy, with its history and characteristics, the project and the beauties of the territory.

In Luca Serasini’s vision, ” the great geothermal cooling towers are a sign of the landscape of Larderello. Industrial archeology of breathtaking visual beauty. It will be for their momentum, their height, the vapors that come out. Symbolically connect the earth’s surface to the depths of the earth and always energy is the same that illuminates the stars, perhaps. Before our contemporary era, in which everything has to be precise, calculated and delimited, and where the constellations are identified by lines that join points, it was fantasy, the dream to describe the sky. Re-drawing them, I made them mine, to try to enter, slowly and through them, in that time that was. “Writes the curator Eleonora Raspi :” Constellations Larderello / light art pushes the viewer to reflect on the need of contemporary man of the stars, or rather, asks us to look at them again, up close, lying on an unusual sky. Each star “demands” attention, approaches the visitor and becomes the protagonist of his temporary but sensitive experience.As in a reversal of heaven and earth, the various constellations, which generally appear distant and tiny, materialize under our eyes on an increased scale. Art becomes the bearer of images of reality, of ideas. It becomes an instrument in the hands of the artist aimed at inviting the viewer not only to see again what has been forgotten, but to reflect on this forgetfulness “.

Pictures of the event can be found on the artists website.

Source: QUI News Volterra