Cinema’s most famous ball, Wilson the Volleyball from Cast Away, has been revived as part of The Odyssey of Wilson, a digital campaign raising awareness of the threat to the world’s oceans, and the importance of UNESCO’s scientific frameworks in documenting and addressing it.

The platform was developed by Africa Creative in collaboration with environmental non-profit Onda Azul Institute and tech company Vivo to coincide with the UN Ocean Conference in Nice.

The campaign imagines Wilson’s existence from the film’s release in 2000 over the course of the next 450 years. By interpreting real ocean data, the interactive platform visualises the ball’s past and future trajectory in the face of acidification, ice shelf collapse, and rising sea levels driven largely by ocean warming.

While the campaign shows Wilson partially degrading over time due to these factors, the ball doesn’t decompose as much as you might hope over four centuries, showing just how lasting the damage of ocean waste can be.

As one message puts it, “He is 80% plastic and he is not disappearing anytime soon”. With a degradation time of up to 500 years, plastic bottles and toothbrushes are likely to follow a similar journey to Wilson.

“Science alone doesn’t move people – stories do. By turning complex data into a powerful visual journey, we help make the invisible visible,” said Raphael Vandystadt, VP of sustainability at Africa Creative, who highlighted the importance of communication in playing a “strategic role in mobilising collective action for our oceans”.

450yearsatsea.com