Miami-based artist duo Guerra de la Paz are known for their work with recycled or discarded items. Through their installations, they raise awareness of unnecessary wastage and the damage that it causes to the environment. Cluster, which is showing at the Isaac Lincoln Gallery at the Northern State University (NSU) in South Dakota until the end of the summer, is no different. Comprising plastic bottles and other materials acquired over two months over the NSU campus, Cluster represents the vastness of the Milky Way galaxy, and was created with help from the NSU students.

Guerra de la Paz draw attention to the fact that these bottles are petroleum-based products that were once ancient fossils buried beneath the earth’s crust. Difficult to recycle but produced in abundance, bottles are cavalierly used as vessels for liquids such as milk and water, to the point where we are no longer conscious of the negative ramifications they can cause to the environment. The gleaming clusters of bottles may look beautiful, but they reveal an ugly truth about our treatment of nature.

Cluster will be showing at the Isaac Lincoln Gallery until 31 August. 

Isaac Lincoln Gallery, Northern State University, Art Department, 1200 S Jay Street, Aberdeen, South Dakota 57401, USA

All images courtesy of the artists.