Plastic Waste Labyrinth. Buenos Aires 2018

  

We visited Buenos Aires last May to build one of our most representative pieces, Plastic Waste Labyrinth, which we had previously installed in Madrid and Katowice.

On this occasion, we were invited by the Department of Environment and Public Areas of Buenos Aires City Government, Ciudad Verde, to celebrate Global Recycling Day. We created an immersive labyrinthine piece where visitors would feel disoriented and anxiously look for an exit. This experience intended to beget a thought, a conversation, or perhaps an intention to improve our way to use or get rid of plastic.

Apart from the discomfort inspired by the view of plastic waste from the surrounding area, we also wanted to show which are the most popular beverage brands, hence those that are feeding more plastic into the environment. To this end, we kept all the bottle labels. Most of them were bottles of mineral water, though there were large quantities of bottles of soda.

Everything has already been said as far as plastic use. However, we want to take the opportunity here to bring attention to the uncontrolled use of bottled liquids which is causing great problems in poor countries while reservoirs are being privatized and bought by large corporations and their selfish interests, thus owning water, Earth’s most important resource and a fundamental right of all its inhabitants.

This time, we collected more than 15,000 bottles recycled from the city with the help of urban recycling cooperatives that lent them to us for this project.

For the installation, we relied on the valuable collaboration of local groups working on environmental and recycling issues that, apart from working hard and looking after us, helped us understand their city’s recycling system.

Once the bottles were selected, cleaned and lit, we built a 200-meter-long labyrinth taking over a 12×12 meter area which took 5 minutes to go through at a normal step. A U-turn in the middle of the way created a true disorientating feeling.

It was located in one of the city’s most emblematic sites, Plaza Vaticano, across the street from Teatro Colón. It was there for a week, open 24 hours a day, free admission. This piece was also the stage for other recycling-related events.

Once dismantled, all the plastics were conveniently recycled and the bottles, cleaned and sorted by color, returned to the recycling cooperatives. The empty transparent bags were returned to their manufacturer to be melted and sent back to the company’s manufacturing process as if they had not ever gone through our hands.

Many thanks to Ciudad Verde for inviting us, to the agency Abrazo that accompanied us throughout the entire process and wonderfully produced the piece, Marcelo, José, and the rest of the team. Many thanks to the technicians who built the structure and illuminated it, and to the people from the workshop who took us in and stored our materials for 10 days with a most friendly attitude.

And, of course, special thanks to all our friends and groups that helped us shape our piece. Without them, this would have been mission impossible:: Circo Reciclado Abuela Naturaleza, Ecobrik, Producto Nueva Mente Elmo Payaso a great pleasure to have met you all.

These wonderful pictures were taken by  Melisa Hernández.

Time of installation: 12 days.
Damages: none.
Exhibition time: 7days.

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