The Parting of the Sea

THE PARTING OF THE SEA

AN INSTALLATION MADE FROM 168,000 USED PLASTIC STRAWS

FEATURE AND PHOTOGRAPHY VON WONG – WWW.VONWONG.COM

It’s just one straw, said eight billion people.

‘The Parting of the Plastic Sea’ is attempting to break the Guinness World Record for the largest art installation made from 168,000 drinking straws recovered off the streets of Vietnam. The project was created to raise awareness on the impact plastic waste has on the environment and to encourage the public to reduce consumption of singleuse plastics. Artist Von Wong, non-profit organisation Zero Waste Saigon, Starbucks Vietnam and leading green developer Keppel Land, have partnered to showcase ‘The Parting of the Plastic Sea’ at the atrium of the Estella Place retail mall in District 2 of Ho Chi Minh City.

IT’S JUST 1 STRAW, SAID 8 BILLION PEOPLE Sounds like a cliché – but these little things really do add up. Straws are virtually impossible to recycle in most places around the world because of how light and small they are. They’re also one of the easiest products to turn down at a bar, cafe or restaurant.

With a truckload of plastic flowing into the ocean every 60 seconds, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed – but I’ve always believed that its less about what we can’t do, and more about what we can do – even if it’s something as small as saying, “No straw please”.

For my latest project, I wanted to encourage people to turn down their next straw by creating a ‘strawpocalypse’. Something so large that if anyone walked by, they couldn’t ignore it. But first, I was going to need straws. A lot of them. At just $10 for 100,000 straws, it would have been super convenient to buy a ton of them and figure something out – but that was clearly not an option.

Zero Waste Saigon stepped in and offered to help, and with the help of Starbucks Vietnam and hundreds of volunteers, we spent over 6 months gathering a total of 168,000 straws to bring this project to life.

THE RESULT

An 8 metre long, 3.3 metre tall art installation representing the Parting of the Plastic Sea.

THE PROJECT

It took us almost two weeks of work to clean, organise and prepare our straws to build it.

The entire project began with a Facebook conversation between Julia from Zero Waste Saigon who reached out to me and asked if I would collaborate with them if they helped me collect all the trash I needed. Starbucks Vietnam later came on board as a sponsor,

and all that remained was to figure out how to transform our idea from concept to reality.

Straws were organised by colour, to represent different parts of the wave. Green/blue/black for the base of the wave, white for the froth on top, orange/yellow for the sand and all other transparent ones as transition points in the structure.

With the help of our volunteers, we also collected used plastic bags for our installation. The plan was to use clear plastic bags to not only act as support for our straws but also to act as a diffuser for the LED lighting of our structure.

Every day, dozens of new volunteers streamed in to give thousands of discarded straws a second life. A little assembly-line was set up and first-hand volunteers would teach newer volunteers how to stick our straws into various different patterns to mimic the direction of the water flow.

Meanwhile, we worked with a local builder to convert our idea into reality. Although we had designed the idea with the help of Nick Moser, a technical builder in San Francisco and Stefan Suknjaja, an escape room designer

in Serbia – we still had to figure out where and how to build things in Vietnam. Luckily Fosha Zyang, a local set designer stepped in to help us out.

My hope was to create the parting of the sea to reveal the plastics hiding within. The plastic problem is either out of sight, out of mind – or so omnipresent that it becomes invisible. I wanted to use art to tackle both angles – by creating something beautiful and unique out of an environmental tragedy.

We arranged the straws like strokes of a paintbrush, trying our best to follow the curves of the lights and waves. The whole time, we all slaved away without knowing for sure, whether or not things would look good – but as the pieces slowly fell into place, we all finally breathed a sigh of relief as the waves of plastic started coming to life.

Our final touch was to add a “sun” in-between the two waves, built by connecting a couple of LED panels together with galvanised wire.

Our installation was given a home in the atrium of Estella Place, offering a 360˚ view of the installation. While it was great for foot traffic and awareness – it also meant a lot of distractions, so we decided to build a white “sky” of plastics, complete with an orange sun.

Although this installation is made from straws, it isn’t just about straws. It’s about taking a first step towards paying attention to the plastic epidemic threatening the oceans we rely on.

If things do not change by the year 2050, there could be more plastic than fish in the sea. While statistics like that can appear daunting and impossible to fight against, it all starts with small simple actions.

FAQ Q: What will happen to the straws after the exhibition ends?

A: At the moment we’re trying to find a forever home for our installation. If you know a museum, corporation or institution that’s interested in moving it, please let us know in the form at the end of the page at: www.Thestrawpocalypse.com.

Q: How were the straws collected?

A: The straws were collected by volunteer clean-up groups all over Vietnam, coordinated by Zero Waste Saigon.

Starbucks Vietnam also set up a number of collection points and asked their employees to pick them out from the everyday trash and retrieve any straws that were potentially usable.

Q: Why would a company like Starbucks want to partner with you? Aren’t they part of the problem?

A: Starbucks is one of the few places in Vietnam that offer in-store cups and mugs. They’re also one of the few establishments that don’t offer a straw, but rather wait for a customer to ask. With their global initiative to remove straws from all of their stores by 2020, Starbucks is trying their best to tackle the plastic challenge head-on.

From the 25 th of January to the 24 th of March 2019, visitors are encouraged to visit the Estella Place and share their experience of the installation on social media accompanied by the hashtag #strawpocalypse. In addition, members of the public are encouraged to pledge their support and make a commitment to tell others “No straw, please”.

For more details, visit: www.TheStrawpocalypse.com