PLastic Islands Madrid Original

https://www.luzinterruptus.com/?s=Plastic+Island

Plastic Islands is an adaptation of Plastic Island, a piece we had installed at Trafalgar Square for the Lumiere London 2016.

This time, the same goal: “To replicate, at a smaller scale, the so-called “eighth continent” made of plastic and garbage which is alarmingly taking over great areas of the Pacific. Governments remain passive before this situation either because they lack interest or because they are incapable to solve this problem. They are allowing this huge mass of about 4 million tons of more or less crushed plastic to shape about 22,200 kilometers (about 13,794 miles) of irregular surface which goes 30 meters (about 98 feet) deep under the water, and is destroying most of the marine wildlife in the area and transforming the ecosystem”.

We needed 60,000 recycled bottles in order to intervene the 3 fountains which we collected for 3 months after they were requested from companies, small businesses, recycling plants and official organisms that generously donated them to us.

We had to develop complicated logistics since the way recycling works in Madrid makes it impossible to salvage containers directly from the citizens’ trash and the dumps where it arrives compressed and destroyed. However, we finally managed to get the necessary material to collapse the three fountains on all their levels, covering the entire surface of water with a layer of bottles. Not a square inch was left uncovered.

We later illuminated the material and left it on display all night so people could stop to watch it and perhaps reflect on the massive usage of a material that is so dangerous and so hard to make disappear.

Intervening such iconic and popular fountains has been a great accomplishment since they had hitherto been enjoyed only at highly secured sporting events. Our goal, from the start, was to help people approach them without any sort of barriers in between. Unfortunately, those who enforce the law decided to fence the perimeter so no-one could get close to the edge. A pity.

We want to thank all the people who helped us build this: the team led by Montaña Pulido and Susana Sánchez, who coordinated the logistics, and Burna, who produced the piece; the organizers of Luna de Octubre who thought of us for this event and believed in our expertise despite the difficulty.

The companies and institutions that donated their bottles (*), of course, and the recycling plant of Ferrovial Servicios, Ecoembes and Valdemingómez, that conveniently pointed us in the direction of the treasures, and all the friends who saved the material of their own consumed products. Without them, this would have been mission impossible.

P.S. We like working with recycled materials though we must admit that it is not easy, or even sustainable in most cases, many interests created around garbage that we are discovering as we work on larger pieces. We foresee a bright future for anyone who decides to manage garbage for art installations as there are many of us who are involved in this.