Berkay Bugdan juxtaposes the image of serpentine sea monsters recurrent across mythologies like Typhon, Vritra, Leviathan, and Jormungandr, with a deluge of plastic waste; to illustrate the human impact on earth in a form more immediately resonant across many cultures.

We can say that it is impossible to intuitively grasp the enormity of the global environmental crisis from an individual’s perspective. Even more tangible aspects of the problem, like plastic pollution, are hard to fathom in terms of ‘millions of tons’, “trillions of particles’, or ‘thousands of extinct species”. No human alone could perceive the totality of these metrics firsthand. However, a culture-hero’s battle against insurmountable monsters, the motif of “chaoskampf”, is more relatably descriptive of the struggles ahead.

The narrative of “Kampf” is clear and simple: the monsters that we created through ignorance and greed will now have to be faced by the future. In no uncertain terms, Bugdan states that this is a battle for survival; and that “you and I, in this time and place, must do anything and everything to give our future a fighting chance”.