Five huge patches of rubbish floating in seas around the world will have their own unofficial national pavilion on the sidelines of the world's largest non-commercial art fair in Venice this week, thanks to artist Maria Cristina Finucci. These "garbage patches" are areas of high marine debris concentrated in the North Pacific Ocean, the exact size and content of which are hard to define, according to the US National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. Mrs. Fanucci, 56, says one of these areas is as large as Texas and 30 meters deep even though the patches are mostly invisible to the naked eye as the debris - chiefly plastic - breaks down over time, without ever fully disappearing.

Giant garbage patches of the sea become 'national' art in Venice. (2013, May 31-June 1). BusinessWorld, p. S3/8.