Description
Inside the Urban Park dedicated to the Major Giuseppe La Rosa, built in the area that once housed part of the old railway station and the freight yard, is the Garden of Proserpina, completed in 2015.
The green space was designed by the Japanese sculptor Hidetoshi NagasawaBorn in Manchuria in 1940, he graduated in Architecture and Interior Design from the University of Tokyo. Master Nagasawa, who has participated in the most important art exhibitions in the world throughout his career, has lived in Milan, Italy, for several years and also has a studio in Castroreale, where he is an honorary citizen.
The garden mediterranean, surrounded by a chestnut log fence and a rosemary fence, is composed of seven unequal truncated cones, made of topsoil and grass, evoking the Aeolian Islands and is embellished with jasmine, orange, myrtle, almond, crab apple, and kumquat trees. A waterfall, which flows from Etna lava stone embankments, recovered from the disused sidewalks and arranged in a cone shape, gives life to a stream whose waters flow along a path that, crossing the entire garden, is interspersed here and there with seven bridges in "Billiemi marble"engraved on the surface with geometric designs created by the artist.
The flowering of the plant elements, during the four seasons, refers to the myth of Proserpina and symbolizes the flourishing nature extinguished by winter and which reawakens in spring.
Overall, it is a fascinating environmental work which, with its local natural elements and reference to mythical archetypes, tells the story of “history of places” restoring its deepest meaning.
