A colourful shimmering on the water surface, light reflections that attract the attentive eye – that’s why hungry seabirds pounce on the supposedly rich prey below the water surface.
However, sometimes it is not fish, squid or crabs that are floating in the water, but undigestable plastic waste that ends up in the animal’s stomach by mistake.
This work was created for an exhibition at the Museum für Gestaltung Zurich on the subject of garbage patches. Garbage patches are extensive spaces in the world’s oceans in which vast amounts of plastic waste accumulate, which has been washed into the sea over the years and carried to these places by currents. This plastic waste, in whole, in fragments or in tiny particles, leads to disturbances in the feeding of marine animals. More and more frequently, incidents are observed that indicate that animals have ingested plastic parts instead of their natural food. This is attributed to visual confusion, among other things.
My pictures present the audience a situation as it could have been created by plastic in the sea. The pictures are intended to appeal to the viewer on a sensual level and to demonstrate how a foreign body integrates itself into the sea and why plastic parts are mistaken for food by the animals.
The aesthetically presented waste is intended to have an attractive effect on the viewer. Thus, for a moment, the spectator slips into the role of a sea creature.
The journey begins above the surface of the water, where the eye tries to identify something in the spots of colour shimmering below the surface. The viewer dives into the water, seeking for orientation in the first moment.
While the focus is initially on the sea creatures, the plastic increasingly takes over and comes to the foreground. With the densification of transparent plastic, the image becomes more abstract and loses colour.
