{"id":4505,"date":"2009-05-20T21:14:14","date_gmt":"2009-05-21T03:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=4505"},"modified":"2009-05-20T21:14:14","modified_gmt":"2009-05-21T03:14:14","slug":"artwork-from-trash-transforming-the-way-we-see-waste-and-the-disappearing-reefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/artwork-from-trash-transforming-the-way-we-see-waste-and-the-disappearing-reefs\/","title":{"rendered":"Artwork from Trash: Transforming the way we see waste and the disappearing reefs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2009\/05\/crochetcoral_1129.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4506\" src=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2009\/05\/crochetcoral_1129.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"165\" height=\"209\" \/><\/a><strong>While <a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/2009\/01\/28\/durable-stylish-and-made-in-america-ecologic-designs-green-guru-wallets-made-from-upcycled-bike-tires\/\">Ecologic Designs<\/a> (one of my previous posts) is thriving by making practical products out of various waste streams \u2013 demonstrating green innovation and up-cycling \u2013 some artists around the world are working with a new medium: trash. <\/strong> These artists are coming together, actively gathering vast quantities of debris floating up on shorelines or collecting waste wherever it might be piling up and turning it into beautiful pieces of art.<\/p>\n<p>[social_buttons]On a trip to Santa Monica, California, a friend treated my family and I to an amazing \u2013 if not also disturbing and mind-opening \u2013 display of crocheted sculptures created from trash.\u00a0 The exhibit, Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reefs by the Institute for Figuring, was displayed in several rooms of the Track 16 Gallery at Bergamot Station.\u00a0 The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theiff.org\">Institute For Figuring (IFF)<\/a> is an organization dedicated to the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of science, mathematics and the technical arts.<\/p>\n<p>Created and curated by Christine and Margaret Wertheim, the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef exhibit was a stunning display of an ingenious use of waste materials, creativity and community, bringing together various reefs created by artists from around the world.\u00a0 The exhibition also brought attention to the plight of our oceans and the depository for our trash that it\u2019s become, accidental or otherwise. The Crochet Coral Reef Project of the Institute For Figuring is conceived as \u201ca woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>According to one panel that accompanied the artwork:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Worldwide, 3,000 square kilometers of living reef are lost each year, a percentage rate attrition that is five times faster than rainforests are disappearing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Of the 100 million tons of plastic produced annually, it is estimated that 10 percent ends up in the oceans.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Each year, 1,000,000 sea birds and 100,000 marine mammals die of plastic ingestion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The United National Environmental Program estimates that in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch there are 46,000 floating pieces of plastic per square mile of ocean, constituting six pounds of plastic for every pound of living phytoplankton.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A mathematician, Dr. Daina Taimina, who presented a hyperbolic structure made with crochet to demonstrate a surface with a negative curvature, set the stage for this exhibit.\u00a0 As it turns out, corals, kelps, sea slugs, sponges, nudibranchs and flatworms all exhibit hyperbolic anatomical features.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2009\/05\/crochetcoral-2_1121.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4507\" src=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2009\/05\/crochetcoral-2_1121.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"216\" height=\"152\" \/><\/a>The diversity of crocheted pieces at the Reef Coral Exhibit is astounding.\u00a0 There\u2019s jellyfish type artwork in cases, wall-hanging pieces and elaborate floor displays with intricately crocheted artwork that brought back memories of my time snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef.\u00a0 To create a \u201cblack kelp forest\u201d, old videotape was employed.\u00a0 \u201cThe Blue Reef\u201d was created entirely of New York Times plastic bags.\u00a0 Other pieces inventively used a mish-mash of waste that one might find, over time, washed up on the shores.\u00a0 Artists, Trevor and Ryan Oakes, created a hyperbolic pseudosphere woven out of pipe-cleaners. Artist Arlene Mintzer&#8217;s black plastic jelly-yarn corals were made from synthetic hair-ornaments, plastic &#8220;rubber bands&#8221; and pieces of New York subway pass cards.<\/p>\n<p>Among the natural world\u2019s greatest wonders, the Great Barrier Reef &#8212; a reef stretching along the coast of Queensland, Australia &#8212; is now threatened by both global warming and pollution.\u00a0 The Coral Reef exhibit powerfully depicts the escalating problem of plastic trash inundating the oceans and choking marine life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll over the world coral reefs are dying out,\u201d explains the IFF website that provides further background for the Crochet Coral Reef Project.\u00a0 \u201cMarine pollutants, agricultural run-off and, above all, global warming, are taking a toll on these fragile marvels of nature. The Great Barrier Reef, the world\u2019s largest living organism, has already suffered coral die-off in almost one third of its 133,000 square miles.\u00a0 Ocean warming is not the only danger that results from our output of greenhouse gasses. Of all the carbon dioxide spewing into the atmosphere, around thirty percent will ultimately be absorbed by the oceans. This excess carbon dioxide increases ocean acidity, with dire consequences for corals.\u00a0 \u2018More acidic waters make it difficult for corals and other calcifying organisms, such as animals with shells, to form their skeletons, which are ultimately responsible for building the physical structure of the reef,\u2019 says Australian Institute of Marine Science research scientist, Dr Janice Lough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another interesting feat of the exhibition is the sense of collaboration and community.\u00a0 Many of the artwork pieces were created by numerous artists collaborating across the continent and around the world, like the \u201cThe People\u2019s Reef\u201d, a melding of Chicago Reef and New York Reef contributors.\u00a0 The Chicago Reef was originally created in 2007 under the auspices of the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum and the Chicago Humanities Festival.\u00a0 The New York Reef was created in 2008 under the auspices of the New York Institute of the Humanities, New York Crochet Guild and the Harlem Knitting Circle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy highlighting plastic waste and recycling it into an \u2018art work\u2019 we hope that with \u2018The Midden\u2019 we can help focus attention on the tsunami of plastic that is engulfing our oceans and strangling marine life,\u201d write Christine and Margaret Wertheim about their large decorative heap called \u201cThe Midden\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cWhat we hope to create here is not just an aesthetic experience but a transformation in behavior. Beginning with our own.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t miss this exhibit if it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theiff.org\/exhibits\/iff-e22.html\">comes to a community near you<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Photographs:\u00a0 John Ivanko\/with permission from Track 16 Gallery<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While Ecologic Designs (one of my previous posts) is thriving by making practical products out of various waste streams \u2013 demonstrating green innovation and up-cycling \u2013 some artists around the&nbsp;[ &hellip; ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":4506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,21],"tags":[3366,3367,3368,3369,133,3370,3371,3372,80,3373,3374,3375,3376,3377,39,3378,2593,3379,689],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Artwork from Trash: Transforming the way we see waste and the disappearing reefs &#8226; 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