ALBANIA:An Albanian artist has created the largest mosaic ever made from corks, which he arranged as an homage to life around the Mediterranean.
Albanian artist Saimir Strati glued 229,764 corks of various shapes and colours over a plastic banner measuring 12.94 metres by 7.1 metres to show "Romeo with a crown of grapes playing the guitar while dancing with the sea and the sun".
He worked 14 hours a day for 28 days and completed his project yesterday.
"It gives me a personal pleasure to declare that Mr Saimir Strati has set today the new Guinness world record for the largest cork mosaic," Guinness adjudicator Carlos Martinez said.
Albanians have been following Strati's third world-record attempt much more closely than his previous two record-breaking pieces of art, a portrait with nails of Leonardo Da Vinci and a galloping horse made with toothpicks.
"I love mosaics, they are a dying genre. I follow the same technique used 3,000 years ago," said Strati.
"A mosaic requires you to work for a long time and keep the emotion alive. I also wanted to appeal to Mediterranean countries not to create mosaics based on computer pixels, but as our forefathers did. The Mediterranean is the home of the mosaic."
His 25-year-old mosaic collection features one created with fragments of egg shells and a portrait of Elvis Presley, made with compact discs.
The artist carried out his latest work in a local hotel, where he apparently appealed to visitors: "Drink, because I need the corks." - (Reuters)