90-foot-long snake about to swallow globe — installation art made out of plastic bottles — draws crowds at Onam display

A 90-foot-long snake-like installation made out of 20,000 plastic bottles by a team of imaginative young minds is one of the major attractions drawing curious crowds at the main venue of the Onam Week celebrations by Kerala Tourism in the state capital.

Thiruvananthapuram: A 90-foot-long snake-like installation made out of 20,000 plastic bottles by a team of imaginative young minds is one of the major attractions drawing curious crowds at the main venue of the Onam Week celebrations by Kerala Tourism in the state capital.

Made for Kerala government’s Suchitwa Mission focused on sanitation, the installation depicts the massive plastic snake about to swallow the Globe — in a clear message about the threat to the Earth from the uncontrolled use of plastic.

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Eleven students of the College of Fine Arts here took four days to put together the predominantly white-and-green work alongside the tree-lined pathway on the sprawling grounds of the Kanakakunnu Palace here.

Erected with the intention of creating awareness among the public about the accumulating plastic waste choking up the planet, the installation got its inputs from plastic-bottles passengers used and left at Thiruvananthapuram Central railway station during the past few days, Suchitwa Mission said in a release.

Suchitwa Mission is the technical support group in the waste-management sector under the state’s Local Self Government Department.

“The 90-foot-long figure, with its slithering looks eventually leading upward to a flared ‘hood’ menacingly eager to swallow a sphere that represents the globe, has been completed by a collective named Trivandrum Young Artist Group,” the release said.

State Tourism Minister P A Mohamed Riyas appreciated the artists and the Suchitwa Mission team, praising the installation.

“This carries a very beautiful message too,” the minister said.

The Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation, in a bid to enforce green protocol guidelines at various venues of the celebrations, has posted a 200-member battalion of ‘Green Army’ at Kanakakkunnu.

The Suchitwa Mission made an appeal to the public at Kanakakunnu and other venues to cooperate with the Green Army and avoid single-use plastics at the site and also desist from littering the venue.

The mission is responsible for conceptualising and action-planning besides conducting workshops and training programmes in the waste-management sector of Kerala.