Pets

Artist: Eduardo Sur
Location: Tietê River, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Year: 2008
Researcher: Gabriela Ribeiro

The artist Eduardo Srur makes the city and the urban public spaces as his own gallery. One morning in March 2008, the river Tietê dawned with an unusual scene: 20 giant colorful bottles with PET (plastic soda bottles) format, "decorating" the river flow.

The 20 huge bottles made of vinyl, inflated and fixed in floating platform remained for two months on the river concrete, and it was seen by over 60 million people. And also featured an educational project that took 3000 children and teachers from public schools to visit the river by boat and see the work, an unique opportunity to embark on the Tietê river.

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The Tietê River has 1100 km of extension long and it bathes 62 municipal regions of São Paulo. It was because of the Tietê River that the city of São Paulo was born. In the following years, it has been widely used for navigation and even to practice water sports, mainly in the metropolitan region of São Paulo. It was from the 50’s that this situation has changed. With disordered population and industrial growth of the city of São Paulo, the river began to receive domestic and industrial sewage in the stretch of the city, leaving it polluted and contaminated.

With this intervention the artist piqued the gaze of the people so that they pay attention to the pollution that always pervades the city.The artist work visually reactivated the river flow.

At the end of exposure, the plastic material of the inflatable bottle was reused for a purpose very consistent with the proposed work. Upon the Mr. Srur request, artist and Brazilian designer Jum Nakao designed and produced backpacks made with the pads of the work to be donated to the schools that made the ride. Therefore, it is concluded that message of the work goes beyond the environmental issue: it proposes recycling the look, bringing citizens to rethink their city. The PETS project beyond the exposed Tietê River, it was also on display at Guarapiranga and in the city of Bragança Paulista, São Paulo.

All copyright belongs to Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, Shanghai University.

Progress Agency