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Teenage artist creates sprawling net from discarded plastic straws

Killer Net

Teenage artist creates sprawling net from discarded plastic straws

The installation Killer Net by the 16-year-old artist and designer Adrianos Souras, who found 9,000 straws and fashioned them into a plastic fisherman’s net. (Yaro Banduro/Design Museum of Chicago)

Plastic drinking straws take up to 200 years to decompose, and with 500 million thrown away each day in the U.S. alone, they are a huge part of the growing plastic waste crisis that is fatal to fish. This is the impetus behind the installation Killer Net by the 16-year-old artist and designer Adriano Souras, who found 9,000 straws and fashioned them into a plastic fisherman’s net.  Fishermen’s nets should be used to catch fish but due to ocean pollution, they increasingly collect old plastic. Souras’s art represents the idea that the ocean and plastic have become synonymous.

Photo of a teenager making a net out of colored plastic straws
The installation Killer Net by the 16-year-old artist and designer Adriano Souras, who found 9,000 straws and fashioned them into a plastic fisherman’s net. (Adriano Souras)

“The Killer Net is visually pleasing and disturbing at the same time, as its complexity, vibrancy, and harmony appeal to the viewer, in the same way plastic has, to the consumers, for so long. On the other hand, it is a terrifying reminder of our future, if we continue to disregard the evidence and impact plastic already has on our environment, we will destroy our oceans and our sea life. The net is adjustable and takes on different shapes, indicating the constant spread, sometimes subtle and sometimes aggressive, that pollution causes. This is disguised behind the appealing colors of the straws,” said the artist.

Killer Net

Through July 9, 2019
Blackbox Gallery, Some Office
1551 West Homer Street, Chicago, IL 60642

By appointment only.


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