Monday, August 5, 2019

Can’t You Sea?

  Last month was designated “Plastic Free July” across the world to increase awareness of the plastic pollution overwhelming our planet and to get people thinking about making changes in how we use it.  Our local art museum had an interesting exhibit, Can’t You Sea?, of art made from discarded plastic, along with special speakers and events, and a free month-long continuous showing of the documentary film, A Plastic Ocean.
  Here are some of our favorite pieces from the gallery.
                                             Washed Upgarbage collected from Sian Ka’an, Mexico.


Japanese artist Sayaka Ganz (reclaimed plastic cable ties, LED wire, plastic ware)


Ganz


Ganz


Ganz


Kirkland Smith (computer keys, milk jugs, bottle caps, contact lens cases, plastic forks)


Pamela Longobardi (recovered life vests from Lesvos, Greece)



Aurora Robson (plastic debris, rivets, washers, tinted polycyclic, mica powder)


Ganz (plastic objects, wire, and cable ties)

  If you haven’t seen the documentary, A Plastic Ocean, I highly recommend it.  If you watch it, I don’t think you will ever think of plastic the same way again!

A brief description:

  The film starts off as an adventure to photograph the blue whale, the largest animal on the planet.  What journalist Craig Leeson encounters on his quest is shocking — a dangerous layer of plastic debris and filth covering the world’s seas and beach communities that were recently pristine. He is joined by diver Tanya Lee and for the next four years they explore and document the mess caused by decades of plastic use. 

  Perhaps the most frightening aspect of plastic debris is that it degrades into micro fibers which enter the food chain and ground water and from there move into human beings. Micro fibers are already being found present in much of what we ingest (from beer to seafood) and are made up of chemicals that alter normal function of the human endocrine system, impair brain development, cause learning disabilities, and increase incidences of cancers.

  Below is a trailer for the film.  You can watch the complete documentary on line.




13 comments:

  1. Thanks for all of this Cynthia. Plastic pollution is one of the most pressing issues of our time and I hope that people will start to pay serious attention to it.

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  2. It is good that films like that bring plastic pollution awareness to a world wide audience. The exhibition is an excellent way of up cycling discarded plastic.

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  3. Certainly on the agenda here - Federal,State and Local government and THE PEOPLE!
    The rubbish that has been shown washed up on the Indonesian coastlines has woke up people with one almighty jolt.
    Keep up the good work Cynthia via your excellent blog.
    Cheers
    Colin

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  4. Some interesting art. Plastic is a big problem why isn't it recycled more. We recycle all of ours:)

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  5. It's certainly a big problem though I'm not convinced that making beautiful objects out of the discarded material quite gets the message across in the same way that the film does. There also seems to be a lot of "greenwashing" going on here with some fast-food outlets making a big fuss about banning plastic drinking straws while still doing untold environmental harm elsewhere.

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  6. What a great exhibition. That plastic we will never get rid of anymore I am afraid....

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  7. I LOVE those plastic artworks Cynthia - I hope it's ok for me to link to it on one of my upcoming posts. I've to a viewing of A Plastic Ocean too, after which there was a collective silence as people processed it. It has been one of the documentaries that has set many people on a plastic-free path. We've recently seen Blue Ocean, which is equally thought provoking.

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  8. Dear Cynthia, thank you for posting this. I will look at the video and see if I can post it on Facebook so that my friends who haven't seen the film may decide to watch it. As he narrator say, the change begins with each of us. Thank you for being part of my change. Peace.

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  9. So we both visited Art museums/galleries. Both with a statement about refugees and life jackets. I love the picture with the red plastic items coming out of it. The docs is scary.

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  10. This was a very interesting post to read. GN and I do what we can do. But this plastic problem is so huge. The videos I've seen on what is collected from the oceans is dicouraging. My husband and I tried to collect what we called "bag birds" - plastic bags caught in tress that flapped in the wind and looked like birds from a distance, but weren't birds at all. We made a very small dent.

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  11. Love how awareness has spread so fast. Now if the solutions could come along as fast, that would be heart-warming. In the meantime if we all do what we can... Thanks for this video link. I'm going to post it on my Facebook page. I have a friend who makes fun of the whole notion of recycling plastic.

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  12. Thank you for this post! Beautiful art and meaningful things to learn. Love your blog.

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