CROTONE – The San Nikolaus boat-monument damaged by arson was repaired by a group of citizens who responded to the “call to brushes” of the #IoResto association.
Despite the heat, on Saturday morning the Crotone community mobilized and responded to the social appeal launched by the association which had promoted the creation of the work of art created by the Catanzaro artist Massimo Sirelli.
Last April, Sirelli transformed a 12-metre boat – which landed on the Crotone seafront walkway on 22 March 2020 with twelve national migrants on board – into an “Hymn to Life”, a monument to welcome, to the inclusion that was was inaugurated in April at the Pitagora Park in Crotone.
On the night of the celebrations of the Feast of the Madonna di Capocolonna, more precisely at dawn on May 20, 2024, a maliciously set fire damaged the San Nikolaos.
Following the fire, despite the reassurances and certainties received, the bureaucracy “or the will” of the institutions failed to respect the commitments made. So the citizens gathered their forces and following a social appeal by #IoResto, on the morning of 8 June it was repaired and repainted where it had been burned: “a powerful symbol of resilience – we read in a note of #IoResto – thanks to the joint action of the association and the Crotone community”.
“Today – continues the statement –, once again, the true protagonist of the change has been the heart, the heart of the citizens, the heart of all those people who have been close to us since the beginning of our journey… with facts, making himself available and always pushing himself one step beyond the limit.”
In agreement with the artist, it was decided to leave a burnt piece, “as a warning and in memory of the vandalism suffered by the work of art on the night between 19 and 20 May, when we found it deeply injured” .
Now “the barge” awaits only the return of Massimo Sirelli who will have to finish the work with his unmistakable touch and thus return to its initial splendor.
