Plastic Ocean underwater exhibition
Over the past 50 years, world plastic production has doubled and is expected to double again over the next two decades.
Dramatic images of sea turtles strangled by plastic strings or sharks’ stomachs filled with plastic bags are currently hanging on billboards.
We’re destroying our oceans and the creatures that live in them. And I am convinced that everyone must do their part to save them. If we don’t, we not only destroy them, but also ourselves in the end.
I’m a photographer. Father. Passionate diver. I travel the world and have always enjoyed the unmistakable beauty of nature. I’ve taken tons of pictures of this beauty. This is what I do best. Catching moments, impressions, feelings with my camera. Creating photographs is my way of dealing with a subject. And it is how I can bring attention to the problem of plastics in our oceans.
With my art, I don’t want to shock anyone, but rather to draw attention to a subject to make people think. I believe that humanity has learned to repress shocking images. The more frightening the pictures, the more ineffective they become in the end. Shocking images of sea creatures are not processed any further by many people. They have no relationship to the ocean, and therefore have no relationship to its living beings, and so they do nothing.
From this, I developed my idea for the Plastic Ocean Project.
In order to give the whole project even more impact, I will be showing the artworks where our plastic problem is most acute: in the sea. More precisely, as an underwater exhibition on the wreck of the USS Vandenberg off the coast of Key West, FL, from May 24 through August 2019, where they can be viewed by anyone willing to dive to its depths. Once the images are removed from the ocean and dried, they will be exhibited on land, with the unique patina developed during their months under the sea, to give non-divers a glimpse of the beauty of the ocean and the creatures that live within it in the hopes that they will be inspired to help.
Visit www.plasticocean.gallery for more information
hanging the images on the USS Vandenberg
Collecting Waste in Italy
