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In 2005, Robert Smithson's Floating Island made its long planned (it was originally conceived in 1970) journey around Manhattan. A purely artistic act, which was in keeping with Smithson’s oeuvre, Floating Island, was likened to a displaced piece of Central Park - a manufactured landscape removed from public access and in a non-native environment.
In the new Millennium, facing environmental devastation and a yearning to connect with our land and communities, modern New York needs a new envisioning of the Floating Island.
Floating Island for a New Millennium seeks to address the specific needs of our time through a Smithson influence artistic act that also engages communities, connects us to our landscape and provides environmental remediation. The project asks communities around the city to come together to construct Floating Islands; their structures made out of discarded waste - plastic bottles & styrofoam - and planted with native water plants, which act as water scrubbers. The islands will then be moored off the many waterfront city parts and some other select locations to begin their task of water cleaning and providing healthy habitat for marine life, birds and insects that are all beneficial to the health of the urban environment.
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