Arts

Studio Swine turns sea plastic into art

by Elisa Routa

 

Gyrecraft is the maritime activity of transforming plastic pollution found at sea into new objects.

 

 

 

According to the Anglo-Japanese design studio Studio Swine, "Gyrecraft is the maritime activity of transforming plastic pollution found at sea into new objects.» Sea Plastic, green abalone shells, turtle shells, brass, rope, shakle, hardwoods, gold plated steel, black pearls, sandblasted glass, Studio Swine’s project is to convert plastic trash from the oceans into a set of luxury design objects, each highlighting the issue of global ocean pollution. 

 

 

Studio Swine (Super Wide Interdisciplinary New Explorers) sees this project as an exploration of the maritime crafts existing in every coastal and island culture around the world: "The South Pacific has the largest expanse of water in the world. The remote island communities have survived and thrived entirely on the sea. As a result, they have developed a distinctive vernacular style of crafts with a complex gift giving culture with precious materials such as turtle shell, blacks pearls and tropical hardwoods." Utilising what the oceans provide, "many of these crafts took place onboard boats during long voyages as a way of making vital repairs or passing the time at sea."

 

 

Spanning 1000 nautical miles, they collected plastic on the way from Azores to the Canaries though the North Atlantic Gyre with the Solar Extruder, a machine they built to melt and extrude sea plastic using solar energy and breaking down most of the plastics into tiny fragments.

 

In the Gyrecraft collection, they used sea plastic as a valuable material and created 5 objects reminding the 5 main Ocean gyres. 

 

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