MAAT is filled with plastic until April 2019. Tadashi Kawamata, the Japanese artist based in Paris, is the man behind the mess that has a serious purpose. The artist has created a monumental installation of ocean plastic in the Oval Gallery of the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology.

♦ Discover MAAT and subscribe to our newsletter ♦

MAAT: Overflow maat MAAT is Filled With Plastic – And The Reason Why Is Serious Tadashi Kawamata MAAT dezeen 2364 col 2 — MAAT: Overflow

The exhibition, called Over Flow, was commissioned by the Portuguese museum to draw attention to the proliferation of plastic debris in our oceans. The large-scale commission is made up of plastic waste as well as boats, collected on the country’s coastline by the volunteer clean-up group, Brigada do Mar.

The group Brigada do Mar started out in 2009 with the objective of cleaning up coastal areas and protecting biodiversity. According to the volunteer group, every year they are able to clean up 28 miles of beach, removing between 20 and 30 tons of plastic litter, with a permanent team of 50 volunteers and many other volunteer members.

MAAT: Overflow maat MAAT is Filled With Plastic – And The Reason Why Is Serious IMG 5574 — MAAT: Overflow

The collected debris fills the gallery space in a sculptural form arranged by Kawamata to resemble an imagined version of the aftermath of an environmental disaster. Visitors are able to walk about under a canopy of plastic waste.

“Over Flow is a truly immersive installation, inviting viewers to experience a seascape of remains which follows a fictional ecological catastrophe,” said the museum.

MAAT: Overflow maat MAAT is Filled With Plastic – And The Reason Why Is Serious f33f10eed0759f6767c075f21189b8ed — MAAT: Overflow

By creating this piece, Kawamata was responding to his memory of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011, but also echoing the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology’s location near the coast.

♦ Discover MAAT and: ♦

Discover The Top 7 Best Architectural Designs in Portugal

What To Do in Lisbon: 48 Hours in the Capital

The piece was put together over the course of a year of research and fieldwork in Portugal, which culminated in a workshop involving the local community, led by art and architectural collective Os Espacialistas, during which the design of the exhibition was finalised.

“Kawamata has often worked with themes of overconsumption and excess, and working for the first time with plastic debris logically related to the accounts of maritime trash arriving in the region’s coastal areas,” said Pedro Gadanho, MAAT director.

MAAT: Overflow maat MAAT is Filled With Plastic – And The Reason Why Is Serious 47693960 514545802363102 5644832750624197881 n — MAAT: Overflow

In her curatorial text about the exhibition, Jecu, the curator of the exhibition, questions the role of the visitor at a disaster site like the one the exhibition represents.

“As a viewer of Kawamata’s installation, we re-enact a position of disaster tourist, coming to explore the spectacularity of destroyed sites – similar to the subculture of illegal tourism around the Fukushima site,” said Jecu. “It is important to ask, beyond mere contemplation, how can a work of art activate a regenerative potential latent in the disaster depicted”.

MAAT: Overflow maat MAAT is Filled With Plastic – And The Reason Why Is Serious 43074510 1782073975253746 7178114335690981376 n — MAAT: Overflow

The work is intended to demonstrate to the viewer the devastating effect that our current human activity has on the natural environment, and to encourage them to act.

Download the 1st issue of Secrets from Portugal