Ocean Junk: Reimagined - a Solo by Afu Shaafiu

‘Ocean Junk’ began a decade ago when Afu Shaafiu observed the junk discarded, mapping across oceans. Separated from their original purposes, these remnants of everyday life became the starting point for an imaginative exploration of what happens when human-made materials enter the natural world. From this encounter emerged a new kind of marine life: fictional creatures shaped by the relationship between nature and human consumption.

Now, ten years after the original series, ‘Ocean Junk’ returns reimagined at Gallery 350, Malé, bringing Afu’s long-running exploration into a new form. The exhibition expands on the ideas that first shaped the project, using images, sculptures, and video projection to examine the lasting traces of human activity in the ocean. 

Central to Afu’s practice is the transformation of discarded materials into something that appears strangely alive. Drawing on the visual language of scientific illustration, he creates fictional marine species that are at once familiar and unfamiliar. They resemble specimens that might belong in a natural history collection, yet their forms reveal an unmistakably human origin. 

The exhibition’s premise carried particular resonance in the Maldives, where the ocean is inseparable from daily life, culture, livelihood and identity. In ‘Ocean Junk: Reimagined,’ this environmental reality is approached not through straightforward documentation, but through transformation. 

‘Ocean Junk: Reimagined’ by Afu Shaafiu will be on view at Gallery 350 till 15 September 2026.