Futureland is a two-person, site-specific installation by Mea Duke and Douglas Breault. The installation title, Futureland, derives from the name for the information center for the artificial island of Maasvlakte, an international seaport in Rotterdam. Maasvlakte lovingly earned the nickname of "Futureland", and the landform started developing in the 1960s during Rotterdam’s postwar revitalization. The landform continues to grow, and is engineered to serve as a major stopover for the global shipping industry which is capable of berthing the world’s largest ships.
Duke and Breault incorporate how “sea-blindness,” a term more generally understood as “out of sight, out of mind,” relates to how unapparent it is how goods make their way to our stores and homes. The continuously increase of the size and efficiency of the shipping industry somehow makes it harder to see. Duke and Breault chew over the sheer volume of everyday goods that crisscross the globe, from bananas to automobiles, and the vast impact the trillion-dollar shipping industry has on the environment, the global economy, international relations, and cultures. The artists’ enlist painting, printmaking, sculpture, and photography to intertwine the familiarity of the objects with their absurd and elusive navigation through unregulated spaces globally.
The Daily Free Press, "Futureland Review"