6,000 Plastic Bottles And LEDs Used To Make Glowing Labyrinth In Poland

Spanish art collective, Luzinterruptus, worked with a polish bottling plant to create an urban light installation you can literally get lost in.

by Matthew James Clarke

June 12, 2014, 6:50pm

Spanish art collective Luzinterruptus may be anonymous, but they certainly know how to leave a memorable impression— or, at least, figure out a solution for those who happen upon thousands of plastic bottles and can't carry them all to a recycling exchange center at the local supermarket. Last month, the crew installed a 11-foot-tall structure called Labyrinth Of Plastic Waste that's true to its name. Standing for two weeks at the Katowice Street Art Festival in Poland, the maze was made from over 6,000 discarded plastic bottles (about 85 feet of wasted), and illuminated the massive structure with autonomous LEDs.

"We had been wanting to do this for some time," the artists wrote in a blog post. "We were looking to demonstrate, in a poetic manner, the amount of plastic waste that is consumed daily, in addition to focusing attention on the big business of bottling water, which leads to very serious problems in developing countries."

With a team of philosophers, artists, illustrators, photographers, and 25 volunteers ranging from industry professionals to the primary school teachers, Luzinterruptus erected the piece in four days, under watch from the neighboring sculpture, the Polish Soldier Monument.

The sculpture was full of labyrinthine corridors where visitors could play, walk, or hang out in an "environment of mysterious shades in which everything that happens is perceived as diffused, and the sun’s rays were filtered through the colored packaging." At night, on the other hand, the piece became an "shining chapel, with walls made of plastic, almost-monochrome, mosaics."

Despite being a Spain-based arts collective, one of the coordinators added that they were excited to build the labyrinth in Poland, as the city did not enforce recycling until just a few years ago. "When we were in Warsaw for the first time, they did not do it," one member of Luzinterruptus said. Now, not only does the city encourage sustainable living, but it promotes turning waste into luminescent art projects that visitors can literally get lost in.

See some images of Labyrinth Of Plastic Waste below: