Wasteland

Jesolo and Adrian are the last humans on Thilafushi, an artificial island where all the waste from the Maldives is dumped. There used to be many of them, sorting through whatever the holiday guests on the neighbouring islands left behind. Then the waste grew and grew until there was no more space for the workers. Now there are no more tourists, but the sea level is rising. Soon, the water will have devoured the last islands, and only the highest elevations - the waste mountains - will stand out. Humanity has rendered itself immortal by way of millions of tons of plastic. When everything else is submerged, plastic waste will still survive the change.

We jump in time: an interactive exhibition in the near future is dedicated to the memory of the Maldives. A lot of effort goes into showing how mass tourism came to be, how a paradisiacal lagoon became the region’s largest rubbish dump, and how eventually the sea swallowed the entire archipelago. Original artefacts bear witness to those days: a throw-away bottle from the year 2020, crisp bags, a suitcase on wheels, a rubber boat with holes …

In Wasteland, Magdalena Schrefel paints the picture of a world where the consequences of climate change and environmental pollution, consequences that are being conjured today, have already become reality. It’s a last look at what is left of the 21st century - if the destruction of habitats continues unchecked.