MARIA ISLANDS

Over years, tons of waste has been shipped to Southeast Asian countries, making them garbage dumps where Western countries can forget about their waste. Some of this waste ends up in The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a collection of marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean. Due to ocean currents gathering the waste in one spot, the garbage patch has, in a way, become an island of its own.

In Kamilo Beach, Hawaii, the first plastiglomerate was discovered. A fusion of sand, shells, rocks and plastic, plastiglomerates has been proposed as an stratigraphic marker of human activity directly affecting the earth.

‘Maria Islands’ is a fictional archipelago made of plastic debris. Here, a techno-deity called Maria cares for the island and brings to life new species that have evolved to adapt to life with plastic waste. What new tools, cultures, technologies and ecologies can emerge?

‘Maria Islands’ tells a story about how the Philippines could use plastic waste exported to the country to expand national territory through the creation of artificial plastic islands.