Sea Rainbow

Artist's note

Sea Rainbow is the story of iridescent marine plastics, that is, plastics that have become landscapes. In 2020, the artist collected marine plastics floating on East Asian beaches collected from the Ariake Sea and Fukuoka beaches in Kyushu, Japan, and installed them in rainbow colors, a symbol of good luck. Born, used, abandoned, and embraced by the sea. What happened to those who returned from a long journey? Scratched, chipped, worn, and faded, their appearance resembles nature, similar to the previous one, but different. The artist meets this marine plastic at the beach, washes it clean with water, and reveals its original color and appearance to become a landscape. This beautiful plastic, which is beneficial to people, is simply thrown away, travels, and assimilates into nature. Convenient use, throw away, and forgetfulness changes our landscape like this, and we are already surrounded by this changing landscape.

Introduction

In the outdoor space next to the playground of Wadong branch school is a vinyl greenhouse named a semi-cylinder-shaped pavilion. Here, the artist puts on display seafood, not plants. Seafood? In fact, they are not living organisms from the sea but marine debris that the artist collected from the beach. It would be fair to call them the product of the land as they were thrown away by human beings of a land civilization. In the journey of marine debris from human-land-sea-land and plant pavilion, we look closely into the damage inflicted by human desire. This rainbow-colored work is beautiful. Yet, one cannot say it’s really beautiful as it poignantly reveals the critical self-reflection contained in the resurrection of discarded things.