Artists as Activists- Ocean Pollution

Sarah Wallace and I collaborated in a project around the issue of ocean pollution. I have always loved the ocean and seeing more and more trash accumulate on the beach and in the ocean got me thinking about what I could do to prevent that from happening. Since I cannot eliminate every piece of trash in the ocean, this project acted as an outlet to raise awareness for the matter.

In order to address this issue most directly, Sarah and I chose to have a sign playing off of the "No Lifeguard on Duty" signs commonly seen at beaches. Going off of that idea, we had our sign say "No Conscience on Duty" to remind the viewer that it is a conscious effort we put in or do not put in when we leave trash on the beach. Together, Sarah and I built this sign starting from getting the wood, to painting the wood, to nailing all the parts together, in order to come up with our final piece. Making this sign was a big risk for both Sarah and I, since neither of us specialize in sculpture or any sort of wood construction, but I am very proud with how it turned out. In addition to making the sign, I took pictures and Sarah used watercolor drawings to display trash on the beach. My individual style came across in my pictures because I got to explore texture and composition. It was most interesting for me to discover how the sand and rocks interacted with one another and also how the composition of the trash played a part in the success of the photograph.

In doing this project, our intentions generally stayed consistent from the beginning. We both knew we wanted to have pictures of our individual work, but the only minor hiccup was how we were going to incorporate the sign into our project without it feeling like a separate object altogether. By connecting the sign to the conceptual concerns of our project, I think we did a good job in making it feel united.

Our formal concerns for this project were to have each picture be the same size, have texture in each picture and the sign, have square/rectangular shapes for each picture and the sign, and also to have a variance in materials. We chose all of these as our concerns to create a sense of unity within our final product. We wanted each picture to have specific qualities that emphasized the individuality of the image, but in the end, for all of the pictures to work together as two separate series, but still have each series complement the other. The variance in texture and materials came more from my individual style that naturally developed in our project as a whole. Even though this project had a lot of moving parts (with the size, shape, texture, materials etc.), each element enhanced the project altogether.