Dust to Dust, Sediments to Plastic
Speculative digital collages, 2026
The project is based on the ongoing observation that paddling pools repurposed on construction sites experience a fundamental shift in function when removed from the context of leisure and play. Instead, they serve as improvised containers for construction waste and concrete washwater.
These improvised sediment traps reveal an inherent paradox: the soft petrochemical plastic of the paddling pool retains the heavy mineral residues of the construction industry. Both materials are directly linked to the exploitation of natural resources, leaving behind technofossil traces that will influence future geological strata. The combination of a short-lived consumer item and mineral sediment juxtaposes transience with geological deep time.
Through a process of speculative image construction, the project constructs visual narratives situated between speculation and fiction, extracting paddling pools from the urban landscape in collages and transposing them into the landscapes of their material origins as speculative visual extensions. The project traces the petrochemical origins of the plastic pools and the mineral building materials back to the sites where they were extracted, revealing landscapes of mining, gravel and sand extraction, and industrial processing. This process traces the production cycle of the materials back to their geological origins. The paddling pool thus emerges as a symbol of the environmental and sociocultural disparities of modern production systems, the effects of which extend beyond the surface of urban areas to influence the Earth's long-term geological composition.