Fossil-based balloon wraps kelp core for sea sculpture in Korea.

3 hours ago7 min read1 comments

Off the shoreline of Busan, a strange new organism has taken root in the intertidal zone, a hybrid creation where human industry and marine biology perform a slow, deliberate dance. The sculpture, titled 'Polymeter' by the collective Plastique Fantastique, is not merely an art installation but a profound ecological statement, a tangible question posed to the waves.Its core is a living, breathing mass of kelp, one of the ocean's most vital and rapidly growing organisms, a cornerstone of coastal ecosystems that sequesters carbon and provides a nursery for countless species. This pulsating heart of the piece is encased in a sheath of fossil-based polymer, a balloon-like structure that is both a protector and a prison, a symbol of the very petrochemical economy that threatens the marine environments kelp forests call home.This intersection of material permanence and inevitable natural decay is the central tension of the work, forcing viewers to confront the legacy of our industrial age. The fossil fuel-derived shell, designed for durability, will eventually succumb to the relentless forces of salt, sun, and water, while the kelp within may flourish or perish, its fate intertwined with that of its synthetic cage.It’s a microcosm of the Anthropocene, illustrating how our attempts to harness or preserve nature are often entangled with the processes that degrade it. The choice of location is critically significant; South Korea is a major industrial power with a complex relationship with its coastline, and Busan itself is a bustling port city where the collision of commerce and nature is daily reality.By placing this dialogue between the organic and the industrial directly into the littoral zone—a space that is neither fully land nor fully sea—Plastique Fantastique evokes the work of earlier environmental artists like Andy Goldsworthy or Nils-Udo, but with a distinctly 21st-century material palette focused on the crisis of plastics and carbon. The work doesn't offer easy answers.Instead, it asks us to observe the process: will the kelp eventually break free from its fossil fuel shroud? Will the synthetic material degrade into a new generation of microplastics, further polluting the very habitat it seeks to comment on? This ambiguity is its strength, reflecting the complex, often contradictory, solutions proposed for our environmental crises. The sculpture acts as a living data logger, a 'polymeter' indeed, measuring not just tidal rhythms but the tempo of our own impact, a silent, elegant, and deeply unsettling gauge of the epoch we have created.

#art installation

#sculpture

#kelp

#biodegradable materials

#marine environment

#featured

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