The Reef

On pleasant summer evenings, Frimisholmen teems with life. A buzz of murmurs, laughter, and music streams out from the restaurants, stages, and dance floors. The light glitters. The artist takes the cheerful, colourful mood out into the black waters of the river. Here, she builds a reef – a practical body that glistens and, nearly imperceptibly, conceals deep significance. The reef itself is a foundation made of plastic – a collection of dead fossil material that steals its life by destroying fish, birds and other living creatures.

Karolina Oxelväg became aware of the spread of plastic when she realized that even breastmilk contains microplastics. She wants to inspire a creative reuse of plastic, and ultimately its replacement with materials that belong in nature’s own cycles.