Sculpture and activism come together in one creative, disturbing project from artist Eben Goff. ‘Flood Cubes‘ are open, three-dimensional cube-shaped frames that Goff submerged in Ballona Creek in Los Angeles County to collect and expose the profusion of debris hidden under the surface of the water.
The cubes were bolted to the concrete bed of the creek so they wouldn’t wash away. The debris they collected includes plastic bags, caution tape and an array of other inorganic materials as well as palm fronds and vines.
It took just one week to accumulate all of the junk that can be seen on the cubes, which were then put on display in various galleries throughout California. The sculptures reveal what the eye can’t see, forcing us to face the damage that we do as a society upon the natural world.
Imagine what we might see if such sculptures were installed along the notoriously polluted shorelines of California. Floating garbage patches are a frightening, growing problem around the world, and researchers have had trouble developing systems to clean all of the damaging inorganic micro-debris contained within our oceans.


