Beirut 2050
Digital collage, 2016
The story unfolds in the wake of a scientific discovery revealing that plastic waste has begun to fossilize into a new geological substance. First identified on Kamilo Beach in Hawaii, this hybrid material—plastiglomerate—is formed through the fusion of melted plastic, organic matter, and stone. Born from beach bonfires and acts of attempted erasure, these hardened masses expose a disturbing paradox: plastic, when burned, does not disappear but mutates into an even more durable form.
As these synthetic stones are buried within the Earth’s strata, they become future fossils—indestructible remnants of human consumption. In Beirut, 2050, plastiglomerates surface as markers of a planet reshaped by waste, signaling the irreversible entanglement of human activity with geological time. Neither fully natural nor entirely artificial, these stones stand as enduring witnesses to the Anthropocene: a world where the residues of capitalism, toxicity, and neglect have outlived the civilizations that produced them.
Beirut: Sursock Museum Publication, 2016.