Labyrith of Plastic Waste

Analyzing literature in an ecocritical way makes one rethink its perspective on the nature. But what does other mediums of art do to raise conversation about global warming and climate change and environmental pollution? In this blog entry, I’d like to focus the attention on environmental art.

Environmental art is a very broad term that includes a number of different practices and movement. Land art, Earth art, Sustainable art, Conceptual art – these are just a few examples of environmental art. Hence, technique, media and style varies as well. As a movement, environmental art emerged in the 1960s, when famous individuals such as Nils Udo, Jean-Max Albert and Piotr Kowalski paved the way for this form of art. They have been continuously creating environment-related work since then. Environmental art deals with exploring the relationship between mankind world and natural environment, it challenges our relationship with nature and remediates damaged environments.

The current environmental issues demand some innovation on the part of artists to provide new ways to not only challenge us, but also themselves when creating art. This is where Luzinterruptus come into play.

                                                                                Photos by Gustavo Sanabria 

Luzinterruptus is an anonymous artistic group, who carries out urban interventions in public spaces. By tackling political and social issues in Europe, the collective aims to bring people’s focus on problems that seem to go unnoticed to the authorities and citizens alike. The “Labyrinth of Plastic Waste” is but one example of the group tackling a serious environmental problem. “Labyrinth of Plastic Waste” has been installed in three cities, In Katowice, Poland in 2014, in Madrid, Spain in 2017 and Buenos  Aires, Argentine in 2018.                                                                  

The idea behind the installation was to graphically visualize the amount of plastic humans consume in their daily lives and don’t often recycle. As a consequence, the plastic that is dumped in nature, ends up floating in the ocean and destroying the marine ecosystem. Furthermore, in these installation Luzinterruptus also brought to attention the fact that the uncontrolled usage of bottled liquids is causing great problems not just to nature but to poor countries as well, since their reservoirs are being privatized and bought by large corporations, thus owning water. Luzinterruptus argue that water is a fundamental right of all Earth’s inhabitants and privatization shouldn’t take that right away from them.

                                                                                               Photos by Lola Martínez 

The installation is a structure of narrow passages, a maze that makes the visitor feel disoriented since one has to keep turning. Bottles in transparent bags with illuminated autonomous LED’s are suspended by their handles from a metallic structure constructed from reusable elements. The heat and the smell of plastic enhance the feeling of uneasiness. In Katowice, the installation was part of Katowice Street Art Festival, and the bottles were either obtained from a local manufacturing and bottling plant or contributed by the residents. In Madrid, the exhibition was done in the framework of the 4th Centennial Celebration of Plaza Mayor within the “Four Seasons” city art program. To collect the plastic material, the group asked for help at hospitals, universities, official institutions, catering and packing companies and other businesses. They also put two containers in the square and asked people to donate their plastic battles. In Buenos Aires, the installation was to celebrate Global Recycling Day and the exhibition was part of several other events organized by the Department of Environment and Public Areas of Buenos Aires City Government. In this case, the artistic group collected more than 15,000 bottles recycled from the city with the help of urban recycling cooperatives.

                                                                                        Photos by Melisa Hernández

Such collaboration allowed Luzinterruptus to analyze the usage of bottled drinks in order to show which were the most popular beverage brands, that were damaging the environment most. As the group notes, most of the bottles were of mineral water as well as of soda. It also made them highlight which cities had official recycling services or recycling centers and containers that actually worked. In Madrid, for example, they found out that PET (thermoplastic polymer resin) isn’t recycled separately and is mixed with all kinds of containers. Hence, that’s why they asked around hospitals and institutions since the city’s official recycling centre couldn’t provide bottles.

                                                                                 Photos by Melisa Hernández

Thus, in addition to highlighting the daily usage of plastic bottles and its harm with their installation, the art group also exposed the trash collections business, the challenges of recycling and the need for constant improvement.

It should also be noted that after each exhibition was closed, the piece was disassembled and every part of the exhibition was recycled. Thus, the installation itself didn’t do any harm to the environment.

The goal of this post was to showcase how artists try to bring forth environmental issues without actually damaging the nature. If they can do it, why can’t we in our daily lives try to be less destructive towards nature? It can start with a simple reusable water bottle instead of a plastic one. Change comes with small steps. The sooner we’ll realize that, the better.

                                                                       
                                                                             Labyrinth of Plastic Waste

                                                                                                                Mariam Meparishvili