When trash becomes a universe
Arts & Culture When trash becomes a universe Bottle caps found on the Australian coast.© TRES [ilana boltvinik + rodrigo viñas], photo illustration by Liz Zonarich/Harvard staff Sy Boles Harvard Staff Writer June 27, 2025 5 min read Artist collective brings ‘intraterrestrial’ worlds to Peabody Museum The bottle caps washed up along the beaches of Australia looking almost like miniature planets. Some looked like flat, hard planets made of marble; others looked watery and remarkably like Earth. Many of them had been colonized and transformed by aquatic invertebrates called bryozoans. The peculiar sea trash caught the imagination of the art collective TRES and formed the backbone of their exhibit, “Castaway: The Afterlife of Plastic,” now on display at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology. Over a 2½-month road trip in a Toyota camper van, the Mexico City-based duo Ilana Boltvinik and Rodrigo Viñas photographed the bottle caps — as well as soda cans, shoe leather, plastic doll parts, deodorant...