Plastic Ocean
Plastic Ocean
By Thirza Schaap
Plastic Ocean combines sculpture with photography and examines our changing relationship with plastics and the increasing and overwhelming presence they have in our lives.
The images show a clash between worlds, offering minimal and aesthetically pleasing compositions which, on closer inspection, instill a sense of ecological grief. Plastic Ocean questions consumption, idolatry, and what it is we value in our lives today. The effect is a quirky, playful and pop art paradox.
At a first glance, the debris do not disgust us. On the contrary. Their dainty look almost seems to gloss over the ugliness of all the plastic pollution on our beaches. But only for an instant. Our initial attraction, soon fades.
Plastic Ocean provides a kind of Vanitas for the 21st century. Traditional icons of mortality, ephemerality and wealth have been traded out for bottles, baskets and bowls: single-use items which are used and discarded, now only existing as empty vessels of destruction. Our beaches are covered in plastic confetti and there really is nothing to celebrate.
