5. Earth Poetica at 3 World Trade Center
A beautiful, vibrantly colored globe appears to be stained glass, but when viewers get closer they realize it is made of plastic. That was Israeli artist Beverly Barkat’s intention with her new sculpture Earth Poetica. Alongside the 50th anniversary of the United Nations World Environment Day, Earth Poetica will be unveiled at 3 World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan on Monday, June 5, as a free public art installation. The stunning globe is comprised of 180 colored panels all created using solely plastic waste, as well as steel and bamboo reinforcements.
The globe’s purpose is to draw attention to regions of the Earth where continents and oceans are particularly suffocating from the ceaseless production of plastic waste. While Barkat gathered a large portion of the plastic used in her sculpture by her own hand, gathering discarded bags, bottles, and cups from oceans, forests, and waterways, she also had help from conservationists around the globe who wanted to support her mission. People from the US, UK, South Africa, Taiwan, Japan, and Australia all came together and sent the artist scraps of plastic waste over the course of three years until her studio was overflowing. Earth Poetica is a call to action to help raise awareness of the issue of climate change all across the world.