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Cloud: Meteoros

Cloud: Meteoros by Lucy and Jorge Orta is the development of a previous body of work, OrtaWater and the result of a field trip to Egypt in 2009, and more specifically a site visit to Moqattam, the Zabbaleen neighbourhoods of Cairo. Here, the community collects and recycles the city’s garbage and the researcher noticed huge bundles of plastic bottles that resemble sculptures. These organic formations inspired the sculpting process of the project.

The work explores the relationship between a lack of water in the world, the privatisation of the resource represented by plastic bottle bundles, and the parallel economy of people surviving on waste. The manipulation of plastic bottles as the raw material of the project required a different way of working as they generate an infinite variety of spatial constructions. The research experimentation included multiple processes to bind the bottles with hot glue, to smooth off crevices and stabilize the final organic formation with papier-maché. Subsequently metaphoric objects were integrated into the formation that were coated with a resin to create a durable shell to protect the fragile assemblages. The cloud formations were then hand finished and were subjected to experiments with metallic layers of paint to create the desired iridescent effects.

Cloud: Meteoros by Lucy and Jorge Orta, won the international sculpture competition, ‘Terrace Wires’, commissioned by HighSpeed1 in 2012 and was exhibited at St.Pancras station, London, 18 April - 15 October 2013.

It was reviewed in The Art Newspaper 2012 and led to presentations at the Royal College of Art and at ENSA-V, Versailles. It resulted in a new commission for the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2013. It continues research undertaken for the Maréchalerie Centre for Contemporary Art and the Gypsotheque of the Louvre Museum, Versailles in 2011.