StudioKCA, a Brooklyn-based team of architects and designers led by Jason Klimoski and Lesley Chang, set out to create interesting objects and spaces that explore mankind’s impact on the planet. One of their most recent projects, for Triënnale Brugges 2018, is making quite a splash. Seen breaching from the Canal at Jan Van Eyck Square in the Historic Center of Bruges, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a humpback whale constructed entirely from plastic waste found in the ocean.

Whale Made Of Plastic Ocean Waste

One of 14 art installation chosen for this year’s Triënnale Brugges, the whale is an an interpretation of this year’s theme “liquid city”, a concept that defines the city as an ever changing set of consumer transactions, whose identity is in flux as cities grow more and more connected through globalization.

Named Skyscraper, the installation has an inner structure of steel and aluminum and stands about 38 feet. The exterior form of the whale has been constructed from 5 tons of plastic pulled out of the ocean (most of it off the coast of Hawaii with the help of the Hawaii Wildlife Fund and the Surfrider Foundation Kaui Chapter), in order to call attention to the other 150,000,000 tons of plastic waste still swimming out there.

They spent four months collecting trash which they then carefully cleaned and sorted by color.

The humpback whale sculpture is constructed using 1,000 square feet of white plastic and 3,000 square feet of blue, grey and green plastic – a small proportion of the waste that fills our oceans.

The installation is a powerful physical example of why we need to change how we use and dispose of plastic in the world today.

The Making of Skyscraper 2018:

The Triennale Brugges runs from May 5th – September 16, 2018

StudioKCA

images and information courtesy of StudioKCA and Triënnale Brugges