Who Thrives in the Plastisphere?

Visualizing the emerging research topic of colonized, aquatic waste.

The Rossana Orlandi Foundation’s yearly exhibition challenges a global community of designers to explore the future of plastic waste beyond conventional sustainability. For the 2021 edition, Flourish LAB was selected to produce and exhibit an illumination of emerging research on the ecology of the plastisphere.

The plastisphere? A suspended composite of waste, assembled by the ocean and colonized by an abundance of biodiverse, microbial life. The project intends to provoke useful thinking around our deep physical and emotional involvement with plastic, and the uncomfortable reality of the lively aquatic ecosystems it fosters.