Islander, (Proposal)

A bio-architectural process that generates new land from plastic pollution.

Team: Cody Lukas and Luis Guzman

In the face of sea level rise and overpopulation, various nations today are turning to the redistribution of “excess” soil, a short sighted, harmful and unsustainable method used to form habitable land masses for the sole benefit of mankind. Islander turns this process on its head, as an innovation in the field of bio-architecture, whereby utilizing a 3-tier approach, an infinite range of organic structures are generated, beneficial for both land and aquatic life, utilizing plastic pollution in the process.

1. A coastal site is selected and studied to identify any potential threats it may face soon as a result of climate change.
2. We mobilize local communities and organizations to work together and gather plastic waste, in order to effectively compress and mold said waste into a form that has been custom designed to naturally weave itself into the fabric of its inhabited environment in a way that addresses said environment’s shortcomings.
3. The structure is coated in 2 non-toxic layers of natural rubber. The inner layer mixed with filtering elements known to entrap common plastic toxins such as BPA in an impermeable seal. The outer layer mixed with calcium carbonate and silica to solidify the exterior in a coarse textured bio-surface, attractive to aquatic life.

Recognizing the many variables that inevitably lead to the introduction of plastics, in both macro and micro form, into the ecosystem, Islander encapsulates them, as to permanently remove them from the natural environment. Its bio-architectural method looks to the 300 million tons of plastic waste disposed of yearly by mankind as a material to design more resilient ecosystems, subtlety transforming the conditions through which change can occur. With its strategic implementation, Islander serves not only the needs of our society but those of many other species as well, as it supports ecosystems, creating the environmental conditions for them to thrive.

Rather than piling material into the earth’s oceans, effectively burying any sea life living in its depths, Islander’s application of environmental design and architectural practice ensures a unique and sustainable approach to land generation.

With its modular design, Islander takes whatever form is best suited to accommodate and support the local habitat. Formations are sculpted to navigate the intricacies of the existing ecosystem, factoring in elements such as light obstruction, present geology and ph balances, as even its surface texture is designed to promote is colonization by local wildlife.

Islander helps design ecosystems to better prepare organisms for possible futures, allowing them more time to adapt to the rapidly changing state of the climate, mankind included.

Islander’s formations operate somewhere in between the realms of natural and man-made as they not only further the development of their surrounding ecosystems, provide habitable terrain for both land and aquatic life, but also entice audiences into their surreal environments. With backgrounds in Environmental Arts practice and Experience design, the executed formations are designed to organically embed themselves into the landscapes they inhabit, while creating new, completely unique, immersive spaces to explore; both above and below the surface.

Audiences are also able to play a direct role in the creation of the piece by taking part in a plastic clean up event organised as part of the work in order to gather waste plastics from the environment for the piece. In addition, should the work be further developed, and a larger implementation manifest itself, local communities would be able to take part in the design process, giving their feedback and opinions along the way.

Other, a self-portrait

An animated creation compiled from images of the artist, distorted and morphed into its own form simultaneously embodying fragments of both The Self and The Other as a manifestation of the uncanny.

L’homme qui marche

L’homme qui marche (The walking man) explores the portrayal of the male gender in art, referencing the works of August Rodin and Alberto Giacometti. 

Here, the artist studies the pieces, of same material, motif and title, as a linear progression of perceptions of gender over time, from the 19^th and 20^th century, recognising artists’ typical reliance upon the physicality of the subject as to convey gender. 

Recreating the work for the 21^st century, in a time when the correlation between an individual’s sex and gender no longer exist, and gender is one’s own subjective interpretation of a construct, of which they choose whether or not to identify, the piece takes the form of a bronze cast strap-on dildo, which visitors of the gallery were allowed to take on should they choose, remediating the process of gender identification.

Eroded

A wall sculpture consisting of 100 pill capsules filled with powdered human skin provided by the artist.

Eroded serves as a commentary on the cyclical nature of life on this planet; where in, with time, all is inevitably reduced to nothing more than their base elements.

Within the work, pieces of the artists own body are broken down and stored within edible gelatin pill capsules, primed and ready to be consumed by another living entity.

“Every atom in your body has undergone an igneous process, and someday will again.”