Carolien Adriaansche, better known in The Netherlands as the “Afvaljuf” (“Trash Teacher” in English).

Plastic waste is one of the reasons for the current loss of biodiversity in the world. Carolien Adriaansche combines her passion for fauna and her fascination of form by transforming disposable trash into playful treasured trophies. Since the 1990’s she has collected and catalogued tens of thousands of plastic packaging parts, by color and form. The artist skillfully recycles, re-integrates and re-purposes “trash” to create a new animal and vegetal species.

During her residency at Zaratan she will be developing "New Biodiversity”, a site-specific installation designed for the exhibition hall called Laboratório de Química Analítica (“Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry”) of the National Museum of Natural History and Science of Lisbon.

With this exhibition, Carolien Adriaansche intends to draw attention to our dependence on plastics and the consequences that this dependence has on the environment.

Composed of a set of plants and animals made of recycled plastic (collected during her stay in Lisbon), it presents itself as a new possible imaginary biodiversity. The collection will be ordered according to the principle of species and sub-species, each identified with a proper "fictitious" Latin name.