A NEW art installation made from recycled plastic which imagines the state of the oceans 100 years into the future will soon be unveiled at the National Museum of Scotland.
Bottled Ocean 2123 imagines the state of the oceans a century from now in an immersive plastic undersea landscape.
The work was created by artist George Nuku with the assistance of around 400 people including museum visitors, staff and volunteers from youth and community groups across Edinburgh.
Groups involved in creating the artwork included the Welcoming, an Edinburgh based charity supporting migrants, asylum seekers and refugees.
The artwork will address humanity’s unsustainable relationship with plastic, highlighting its impact on the natural environment and asking audiences to rethink their relationship with it.
Artist George Nuku said: “Plastic is a fascinating material. We think of it as new, with all the things we use it for.
“But, in fact, when you think about how it is made, from material created during the Earth’s ancient processes, that simple plastic bottle is in a way one of the oldest things around.
“And if you think about it that way, like an ancestor, then maybe you can start to think about treating it with respect instead of throwing it in the ocean.
“With the help of hundreds of local people, we’ve taken a pile of trash and made something beautiful.”
Students from Edinburgh College of Art, children from Granton Youth and Pilton Youth and Children’s Project also contributed.
Bottled Ocean 2123 will be unveiled to the public next month in the exhibition, Rising Tide: Art and Environment in Oceania.
The exhibition will delve into the most important and pressing issue of our time, humanity’s damaging relationship with planet Earth.
This is felt especially deeply in Australia and the Pacific Islands where sea levels are rising due to climate change and the oceans are filling with plastic.
This exhibition considers our relationship to the natural environment through contemporary responses to climate change and plastic waste by Indigenous Australian and Pacific Islander artists.
Rising Tide: Art and Environment in Oceania is part of Edinburgh Art Festival, taking place between 11–27 August 2023.
