Huge and intricate art installations can be a compelling way to visualize some of humanity's environmental problems, and the Strawpocalypse is a particularly unflinching look at one of our most insidious and enduring. Put together by Canadian artist Von Wong, the stunning installation features thousands upon thousands of discarded straws arranged as inward facing waves that represent the "parting of the plastic seas."
Our problem with plastic waste is showing no signs of slowing down, but more and more evidence is emerging of how dire the situation is. Researchers at universities and those working on The Ocean Cleanup Project are continually improving on the ways we track the millions of metric tons of plastic waste that wash into the oceans each year, but what to do about it is another question entirely.
At least part of the answer to that question is to try and reduce the amount of single-use plastics we use in our day-to-day lives, and the 3.3-m-tall (10-ft) Strawpocalypse is Von Wong's way of trying to raise awareness of the problem and stem the tide.
He teamed up with Starbucks Vietnam, environmental group Zero Waste Saigon and hundreds of volunteers for the project, who together arranged 168,000 straws into a massive color-coordinated piece of artwork.
The straws were collected by volunteers from all over Vietnam, with the blue, green and black straws making up the main body of the wave. Orange and yellow were used for the sand at the base while the white straws were fixed to the top to represent the froth of the wave. Recovered plastic bags, meanwhile, were used as light diffusers for the LEDs built into the structure. A white sky of plastics with an orange Sun sits behind it.
Strawpocalypse is currently installed at Estella Place in Ho Chi Minh City, where it will remain up until March 24, 2019. You can hear from the artist in the video below.
Source: Von Wong