An intriguing sculpture by the El Hierro artist Rubén Armiche representing the Descent of the Virgin of Los Reyes. It is made from recycled materials and, beneath its white surface, contains all kinds of urban waste, including household appliances, car parts and old wood. It forms part of a project called Reutilizart, whose aim is to connect waste reuse with art to create open-air sculptures on the island.
The front shows two dancers of the Virgin, with an allegory of the hats that distinguish them – each village has its own model, seven in total.
A curious detail about these hats is that the small coloured pieces adorning them are actually caps from drinks containers, collected by schoolchildren in order to involve the youngest in the project and help them better understand the “culture of recycling”, understood here as reuse.
Behind the dancers is a depiction of the corso, the procession in which the Virgin of Los Reyes is carried along the traditional paths on the day of the Descent. The Descent is a popular festival with a religious character, held every four years, on the first Saturday of July. It is a one-day pilgrimage that takes the Virgin from her hermitage in La Dehesa to the church of Valverde. During the following month she is taken from village to village, and on the first Saturday of August she is returned to her hermitage in what is known as the Ascent of the Virgin.
