Garbage Patch State
Oceanic Parliament
Oceanic Parliament, the new competition by YAC aimed at the design of a floating parliament for the Garbage Patch State.
At the same level as the ruins of Chernobyl, the ship cemeteries on the African coasts, or any other icon of the Anthropocene, the big plastic islands of the Pacific are an environmental catastrophe beyond any possible understanding.
Remote and hard to reach, impossible to map or photograph, they only exist in estimates, which anyway refer to a scale that slips away from common understanding and leaves this disaster in a grey zone of silent acquiescence.
One of the most evident effects of global pollution is still invisible to the masses and far away from common sensibility.
For this reason, in 2013, artist and performer Maria Cristina Finucci gave rise to a great cultural operation, the foundation of the Garbage Patch State, inducing numerous institutional actors to recognize the big plastic islands as a real state.
A symbolic act designed to attract attention, which over the years and with various demonstrations was committed to nourishing awareness of such a phenomenon.
Today, the time has come for the Garbage Patch State to take the next step: for the first time in its history, it needs a place where the supporters of this project can gather and dialogue, deciding on their own future and initiatives.
Today, the Garbage Patch State needs a parliament.
A place that is iconic and symbolic, before being functional, which continues in the mission of raising awareness about environmental issues and in campaigns against plastic pollution.
And what better icon than a floating parliament, designed to stop in major coastal cities, to remind us of the ever-growing threat in our oceans?
This is the aim of Oceanic Parliament, to create a manifesto architecture which can be associated with the protection of marine ecosystems, recognizable and recognized as the symbol of a global movement that starts its government, just as the United Nations and any other building which has turned into a plastic image of its own mission and social commitment.
YAC thanks all the designers who will take on this challenge.
Jury
Each jury is nominated with utmost care and is composed by professionals of the highest repute whose activity is consistent with the theme of the competition.
Partners
YAC thanks all the people who have been engaged in organizing the competition by sharing time, materials and resources to make the experience of architects unique.