Margaux Blas: Giving Voice to Waste with the Power of Installation Art

By Noel Galon de Leon

From the lush landscapes of Iloilo emerges a formidable voice in contemporary Philippine art—Margaux Blas, a multidisciplinary artist whose work defies categorization and demands contemplation. Blas is not simply creating objects of visual interest; she is building worlds of memory, activism, and visceral emotion. Her most recent installation, Mangrove Memory Tree, stands as both monument and metaphor, a sculptural plea for environmental consciousness, born from the very materials that threaten our future.

Blas’s artistic journey began in fashion, earning her degree in Design and Merchandising from De La Salle–College of Saint Benilde in 2011. After five years immersed in the commercial fast lanes of Metro Manila’s apparel industry, she returned to Iloilo in 2015. What could have been a retreat became a return to self. There, away from the pressures of urban commercialism, she reconnected with her agricultural roots, with the land, the local artisans, and, most significantly, with her inner voice. This reawakening gave rise to a body of work that fuses traditional craftsmanship, intuitive composition, and a profound commitment to environmental and social issues.

The Mangrove Memory Tree encapsulates this shift. Constructed almost entirely from upcycled plastic waste, the installation is not merely a symbolic gesture, it is a physical confrontation with the permanence of our collective neglect. The choice of plastic is deliberate. This is not just about repurposing waste. It is about elevating it into a vessel of memory and message. In choosing the mangrove as her central form, Blas draws on a living metaphor. Mangroves are nature’s filters, crucial to marine ecosystems, often choked with the very plastics humans discard. By creating a mangrove from plastic, she collapses the line between the natural and the artificial, exposing our role in this devastating transformation.

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While Mangrove Memory Tree by Margaux Blas is undeniably impactful in its environmental message and innovative use of materials, it is not without limitations. The installation’s reliance on plastic waste, though conceptually powerful, risks aestheticizing pollution in a way that might inadvertently normalize or even romanticize the very problem it seeks to critique. Also, situating the work in a commercial mall, while democratizing access, could dilute its urgency by embedding it within a consumerist environment that perpetuates the culture of disposability. The temporary nature of the installation also raises questions about the longevity and tangible impact of such environmental art, if the physical piece will degrade and disappear, how effectively can it sustain ongoing dialogue or drive real-world change beyond initial public engagement? Finally, the work’s activist intentions, though clear, might benefit from deeper integration with community-led environmental initiatives to avoid perceptions of art as symbolic rather than practical intervention.

Blas’s process is deeply intuitive, yet rigorously thoughtful. She gathered materials through community engagement, beach cleanups, collaborations with environmental groups, and the quiet labor of friends and family. Every piece of plastic was selected not just for color, but for narrative. Some were woven, others fused or sewn by hand. Through this tactile, patient process, Blas performs an act of reclamation—of waste, of forgotten materials, of communal agency. The final work reverberates with echoes of the land, the people, and the crisis that binds them.

But this is not simply an exercise in craft or concept. The installation, exhibited in a commercial mall space, confronts the hierarchy of art venues. Blas once believed art belonged solely in galleries. Now, she insists it must exist where the people are, where it can interrupt daily life, provoke reflection, and ignite conversation. The public space becomes sacred in its ability to democratize awareness. The Mangrove Memory Tree is not meant to be admired quietly. It is meant to unsettle, to question, to awaken.

Critics may argue that projects like these are temporary, or worse, veiled attempts at corporate greenwashing. Blas responds with grounded clarity: yes, the installation is temporary. Yes, the colors will fade, and the plastic will degrade. But the message—plastic is forever—will remain. Her role as artist is not to legislate, but to ignite. She makes no grand claim to solve the crisis herself, but calls attention to those who can. She envisions this work as a catalyst for dialogue with LGUs, private institutions, and citizens. She has already spoken with local officials, drawing from her experiences in Gwangju, South Korea, where rigorous waste segregation is the norm. Her goal is to bring that discipline, that civic pride, into the local consciousness.

There is a radical sincerity in Blas’s voice. She does not hide behind abstractions. She speaks plainly about the realities of environmental collapse, the fatigue of awareness campaigns that go ignored, and the often limited impact of symbolic gestures. But she believes in the power of beginnings. She believes in the quiet shifts that happen when a child sees the Mangrove Memory Tree and asks why it is made of plastic. That question, she insists, is the seed of change.

Art, for Blas, is not an escape. It is a reckoning. Her installation is not decorative, it is devotional. It is an altar to responsibility, a reminder of what we discard and what we risk losing. Her voice is not simply that of an artist, but of a witness, a gatherer of fragments, a prophet of what could still be salvaged if we act.

In an era overwhelmed by ecological despair and performative sustainability, what Margaux Blas is doing matters immensely. She is building bridges between beauty and burden, between memory and accountability. She is turning the detritus of modern life into a sanctuary of meaning. The Mangrove Memory Tree may not clean the oceans, but it cleanses the soul by reminding us that action begins with awareness, and awareness begins with seeing.

Saludo to Margaux Blas for reminding us that in the ruins of what we throw away, there is still something worth saving.

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Noel Galon de Leon is a writer and educator at University of the Philippines Visayas, where he teaches in both the Division of Professional Education and U.P. High School in Iloilo. He serves as an Executive Council Member of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts-National Committee on Literary Arts.