Past Exhibition
Washed Up:
Transforming a Trashed Landscape
Alejandro Durán
October 30, 2014 – February 28, 2015
About
Washed Up:
Transforming a Trashed Landscape
Alejandro Durán
October 30, 2014 – February 28, 2015
A multimedia exhibit by artist Alejandro Durán, a Mexican-born, New York-based photographer whose work addresses the issue of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans. Durán possesses an inherent desire to uncover the disturbing reality of what lies on the shores of Mexico’s Sian Ka’an region: the world’s trash. This fascination turned into the ongoing project, Washed Up, which addresses the environmental impact of plastic pollution in the earth’s oceans. Located in the southern part of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, Sian Ka’an is home to more than twenty Pre-Columbian archaeological sites and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Given this enticing setting and distinct geographic location, it is hard to believe that the region is inundated with plastic waste covering its approximately 75 miles (120 kilometers) of Caribbean coastline.
Alejandro Durán’s recognition of and obsession with this poignant contradiction has led him to collect and catalogue the plastic waste from the shores of Sian Ka’an. Using these accumulations of plastic, Durán creates intricate interventions in the landscape, often positioning the discarded plastics so that they appear integrated into the surrounding vegetation and natural topography. Through his photographic documentation of these installations, Durán captures his interventions and the resulting photographs are representations of the startling contrast between the natural beauty of Sian Ka’an and the devastating aggression of the world’s plastic waste.
—
Programming
January 2015
Oceans of Trash: Tackling Marine Plastic Pollution
A panel presented by Hunter East Harlem Gallery and CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities; with moderator Owen Gutfreund, and panelists Anna Cummins, Marcus Eriksen, Alejandro Durán, and Carson Farmer.
Gallery
