Exploring the Global Nature of Ocean Plastic - Pam Longobardi
About Pam Longobardi
Pam Longobardi is a conceptual artist whose work addresses the relationship between humans and the natural world. Pam is Regents’ Professor and Distinguished Professor of Art at Georgia State University and the recipient of the prestigious Hudgens Prize. She has exhibited on a global scale which is appropriate since her Drifters project explores the global nature of ocean plastic.
Ocean Plastic, Conceptual Art, and the Drifters Project
Pam Longobardi is a conceptual artist and professor at Georgia State University whose work explores the relationship between humans and the natural world. Through her art, Pam examines urgent environmental issues including plastic pollution, climate change, marine debris, and the impact of human activity on the ocean.
Pam recognizes plastic as a global problem. “We are literally surrounded by it every moment of every day,” she says, yet we still do not fully understand the scale of its impact.
Her Drifters Project follows plastic on its journey through the natural world. Pam is interested in where plastic travels, how natural forces change it, and what happens when it enters ecosystems. In her work, plastic may be shaped by the heat of lava, carried across oceans, washed onto distant shorelines, or found inside the stomachs of animals that mistake it for food.
When Pam encounters a shoreline covered with plastic debris, she treats the site like a crime scene.
“It’s a crime against the natural world and a crime against the nonhuman world and a crime against the human world.”
Pam has traveled to places including Indonesia, Belize, Panama, and Palau to study, collect, and document ocean plastic. Her work reveals that marine debris is not isolated to one beach, one country, or one community. It is a global system of waste that connects people, places, and ecosystems.
Part of the power of Pam’s art comes from the familiarity of the objects she uses. Viewers recognize plastic items from everyday life, but they encounter them in a new and unsettling context. Through her installations, Pam transforms ordinary plastic waste into symbolic evidence of environmental harm.
“I didn’t on my own make this material. I’m kind of gathering it on my own and showing it back to you, and I’m showing it to you in a way that has symbolic meaning. That’s what artists do.”
For Pam, art can hold both fact and emotion. A piece of plastic is a real object, but it is also something that has passed through human hands, traveled through the environment, and taken on new meaning. Through the Drifters Project, Pam Longobardi asks viewers to look again at the materials we use, the waste we create, and the ocean we are all responsible for protecting.
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Pam Ferris-Olson (00:00): Well, you had your icon up with a boat behind you and I'm going, "Boy, I'm really jealous, you know?"
Pam Longobardi (00:07): I know. Isn't that an amazing boat? It was an all wooden expedition ship that I was on in Indonesia. So it's based on their traditional style of building. And when you do a crossing and you're sleeping on the boat, so it's moving all night, it just, there's an orchestra of sound that's so cool.
Pam Ferris-Olson (00:36): Today on the Women Mind the Water podcast, I'm speaking with Pam Longobard. Pam is a conceptual artist whose work addresses the relationship between humans and the natural world. She is exhibited on a global scale, which is appropriate since her Drifters project explores the global nature of ocean plastics. The Women Mind the Water podcast engages artists in conversation about their work and explores her connection with the ocean. Through these stories, Women Mind the Water hopes to inspire and encourage action to protect the ocean and her creatures. Our guest today is Pam Longobard. Pam is Regents' Professor and Distinguished Professor of Art at Georgia State University. Among her many accomplishments, Pam won the prestigious Huygens prize, one of the largest single prizes ever given to a North American artist. After discovering an extensive amount of plastic debris on the remote shores of Hawaii in 2005, Pam has collected and utilized cast ashore plastic as the primary material for her Drifters artwork project. Pam says that plastic objects are the cultural archeology of our time and that these materials represent how humans are remaking the world because of them.
Pam Ferris-Olson (01:58): Thank you for joining me on the Women Mind the Water podcast. I am most interested to talk with you about your Drifters project. On an earlier podcast, I talk with Austen Soundtrack, a San Francisco based artist who creates large animal sculptures from plastic waste collected from the city's waste stream. So I guess you are not alone as an artist in using recycled plastic to make a statement. However, I wonder if you are unique because you travel around the world, much like the plastic in the ocean, to identify sites from which to create an installation.
Pam Longobardi (02:36): Well, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the invitation. I love the title Women Minding the Water because I do feel like we're in the middle of a kind of transformative moment. And that is the time right now. I think we are coming to that realization of roles that have been suppressed in terms of what women's power can actually do is changing and I'm just thrilled to be alive at this moment. Yeah, so I do work on a global scale and the plastic of course is a global problem. The Drifters project, the name actually I think refers to myself in a way as well. I kind of consider myself a drifter in some regard. And so, yeah, I work with this material and I wanted to mention that I really feel like there is something particular about what we do with this material that it has a lot of different ramifications.
Pam Longobardi (03:48): So to start with I really feel like we don't understand this material and we don't even see it because it's too ubiquitous in our life. We are literally surrounded by it every moment of every day. And I don't think that there's probably just a rare handful of humans on earth that have not in some way or form touched or been in contact with plastic. So that's the first part of how we don't understand it.
Pam Longobardi (04:21): The second part is of course what happens to it after we finish using it. And that's where my work comes in. I'm very interested in the plastic that has gone off on a journey through the natural world, through the currents of the ocean, through the forces of nature that might deform it like a lava flow melting it as it passes the big island of Hawaii, or how it goes into a creature's stomach and then becomes regurgitated out. So this plastic gets changed in that process. And that's when it becomes a drifter. It is now a messenger. It's something that's coming back to tell us something. And what I think it's telling us is that we need to pay attention and that the ocean is sending us a message through this material.
Pam Ferris-Olson (05:17): So I believe it was a large amount of plastic that washed up on a remote shore in Hawaii that inspired you to create your first installation. Did you create that on the shore or did you create it elsewhere?
Pam Longobardi (05:31): I actually did it not on the shore, but I do a lot of work on site. And the first piece that I made was a big form, is kind of spider web form, made from driftnet and other collected plastics that were kind of suspended in the web itself. And that was done on a residency in the south point of the big island. So I was there on that residency when I first stumbled upon this material. And the work that I do on site though is I document it. And I make forensic photographs of what I encounter because I really do feel like I'm witnessing a crime. It's a crime against the natural world. It's a crime against the non-human world. It's also a crime against the human world. We are encountering daily the toxic nature of plastic and learning more and more about what it's doing to our bodies in addition to all the bodies of the creatures on earth that encounter it. So the things that I find on site I photograph and I'm also learning. So that is something that's really another important part of my process.
Pam Ferris-Olson (06:50): So when you created that first sculpture on the big island of Hawaii, did you use the plastic you found on the beach or where did you gather the plastic for that first installation?
Pam Longobardi (07:01): Yeah, I dragged it right off the beach. I got as much of the drift net, which is at that point called ghost net because it's not being used in the fishing industry the way it's originally intended. It's now set free and is wantonly killing creatures. They're still getting caught in it, but it's not being harvested. And they form these things called net balls, which are an amazing object. They're what I consider a sculpture made by the ocean. And it finds these different materials. And then through the engine of the ocean, the hydrodynamics of the physical material of water, it puts them together and knocks them together. And then the ocean vomits it out on the shore very much like a cat throws up a hairball. It's an attempt to get rid of it. And so when I found those big netball, they weigh tons. They're huge. I could only cut pieces off and drag them back with me to the studio. And then I collected other objects, which I also suspended into the net.
Pam Ferris-Olson (08:11): Can you describe for listeners what you mean by a forensic photo?
Pam Longobardi (08:17): Yeah. Forensics are a term that are used in the discovery of crimes. Like when this person was shot, who shot them, what type of bullet was used, et cetera. And there's a kind of interpretation of the forensics that I'm using, which is more like a forensic aesthetic. And so what I'm doing when I look at the photographs is, or look at the plastic that I find, is I'm trying to determine where did it come from? Is there any readable language on that that I can track down the manufacturer? Can I guess what it is? Is it's something I recognize or could I find it in a Google image search, for example. Who bit it? What kind of creatures have left their teeth marks on it as they try to test it for food? Who is now living on it? What ocean creatures have colonized it and made it a floating colony? Coral and bryozoans and algae, and baby crabs and small fish, they're all collecting around these pieces of plastic in the ocean because they sort of function as a protection in a way. They can hide under them if they're small and then they're not visible to other prey.
Pam Longobardi (09:38): So I'm looking at this and I want to learn as much as possible from the material. And then I want to remove it. And so the forensic part of it is to show it insight, to show people where this stuff we use every day ends up. And why it's the disaster at the scale that it is?
Pam Ferris-Olson (09:58): How do you pick the sites? Do you follow ocean currents itself or do you have people call you and say, "You really ought to come and look." How do you determine where you're going to go?
Pam Longobardi (10:12): That's a great question. All of those, I do. I look a lot on Google earth and I look on NOAA sites that have the buoys and I'm a surfer, so it's something that surfers do. They want to find out where there's going to be a swell where they could catch waves and those also tend to be the places that have higher impact in terms of waves hitting the shores. And so they tend to be the places that plastic also collects so that's one way. Another way is people do let me know they've seen stuff somewhere, and I should try to go there. Oftentimes I get invited on expeditions, which I'm part of Oceanic Society, I;m their artist in nature. And so that's been one of the most amazing things that have come out of doing this work is that I've been able to go on expeditions with naturalists, biologists, other kinds of scientists, artists, sometimes policymakers.
Pam Longobardi (11:21): And we've started doing a series of plastic pollution expeditions, where we're going to different locations that are very inundated, particularly Indonesia so far. We've also gone to, I've gone as part of Oceanic, to Belize and to Panama. The expeditions were also in Palau. So different locations that were, they're highly impacted, and we're attempting to support work on the ground of people that live in those areas and highlight the good work that's already happening there and help them in any way, just at least to shine a light on their problem and how they're addressing it.
Pam Ferris-Olson (12:09): So would you tell me a story about one of your installations and describe the thought process in picking the location, who was involved in the project, and how the project unfolded?
Pam Longobardi (12:22): Sure. I think I'd like to talk about a piece that I did shortly after the Gulf deep water horizon disaster, also known as the BP oil spill, which is a diminutive term. It was not a spill, it was a disaster. And we need to acknowledge the scope of it with the terminology that really addresses what happened. So this piece was called The Crime of Willful Neglect for BP. And it was a large droplet shape that was 12 feet tall, and about eight feet across. And the way I do my installations is I mount individual pieces of plastic that have been only cleaned. They have not been changed in any other way from when I find them originally. And I mount them out on specimen pins, and then I map them into a composition on the wall, and then they are directly attached to the wall.
Pam Longobardi (13:30): So this composition of the droplet had over 500 elements and was 12 feet tall. And well, the Gulf of Mexico is very close to my heart. It's kind of my home beach. My sister lives there. I got married on that beach. I've been there so many times. And when that happened, it changed that whole ecosystem and it changed the economy and it changed the people there. And you won't hear much about that because BP, in order to sort of make their payments and try to clean up that part of their mess, they made all the people there sign a gag order where they can't talk about this anymore. And to me, that's just one aspect of this crime that I don't feel has been ever fully compensated. And the crime that I think really is that it was willful neglect. They knew that they didn't really know what was going on to the extent that they should have. They weren't paying attention. And I think in general, we don't know what we're doing enough to have drills going down five miles under water far off shore to pull out this oil. It's a desperate move. It's an act of desperation. I'm still angry about it. I'm still really upset that this was taken care of supposedly.
Pam Ferris-Olson (15:00): I can tell, yeah. Why do you think the Drifters project has garnered so much attention?
Pam Longobardi (15:05): I think I have a particular interest in the combination of art, science, and activism. It's a sort of triangulation that involves both sides of the mind and the heart, the heart of the activist. And so I think that is also something that is a necessary combination. We will need this for all aspects of humanity moving forward.
Pam Ferris-Olson (15:31): So I've asked other podcast guests if they thought art could make a difference. Clearly you believe that art can make a statement. I wonder if you could offer some evidence of the kind of success your installations are having in shifting the narrative about plastic?
Pam Longobardi (15:48): Well, I really feel like artists are antenna. Artists have a kind of foresight in a way I would say, and maybe it's just any intuitive person, but I see it manifested in artists because that's what artists do. We pick up the kind of, tap into the energies that are happening around us and oftentimes can see things that are coming perhaps before other people. I don't know why. I just think it's happened over the course of our history. We have many, many examples. In my case, it was, I think the way that people respond to seeing my work in exhibitions or working with me on beaches, if I'm doing a kind of forensic beach cleaning training, or if I give a lecture or a talk, people come up to me with tears in their eyes and say that they have never thought about plastic in this way.
Pam Longobardi (16:57): And they're making changes the minute they leave. And so I know I've reached something and I think it's partly because I didn't by myself make this material. I'm almost just gathering it and showing it back to you. And I'm showing it to you in a way that also carries symbolic meaning. And I think that's what artists can do. They can combine factual things like an object that has a location that it was found, it has chemical traces on the surface you can study, but it's also something that has passed through the hands of people that they're familiar with intimately: combs, toothbrushes, all kinds of objects we use every day. And then it also has this emotional resonance, which is that you can tell that this thing is not just something an artist made. It was made by commerce, it was made by a factory, and then it was remade by the actions that were taken on it as it traveled around the world. And then I guess it was remade a third time by my actions of gathering it and putting it back into a social space for display and contemplation and discussion.
Pam Ferris-Olson (18:22): What kind of advice can you give listeners who want to express their concern for the ocean and encourage others to take action to protect the ocean and her creatures?
Pam Longobardi (18:33): Use whatever tools you have at your ready. Whatever's in your toolbox. If you are a good speaker, speak about it. If you can make art, make art about it. If you simply want to make changes as a human being in their daily life, I think the very first thing you can do is just to slow down and minimize your purchase and interaction with particularly single use disposable plastic, but any kind of plastic that you can avoid if you have an option. Okay? So not everyone does. Plastic, in addition to all the environmental issues, is of course a social justice issue. And there are not the same kinds of things available to everyone on earth. And often the poorest communities have the least choice in that matter. And their food might most likely be wrapped in plastic. But if you have a choice, don't buy into that system. We know it's a political issue. We know it's a human health issue. We know it's an environmental health issue. And I think it's actually, for me, it's at the center of every one of the major problems that we are facing on the earth right now. It's at the center of climate change.
Pam Ferris-Olson (19:52): Well, I'm extremely grateful that you took the time out of your busy schedule to talk with me. It's been inspiring to hear you describe the evolution of your plastic project.
Pam Ferris-Olson (20:04): And I've been speaking with Pam Longobardi for the Women Mind the Water podcast series. You can follow her work through her blog driftersproject.net. And if you are interested in the Ocean Cleaners project, go to oceancleaners.net to learn more. The Women Mind the Water podcast series can be viewed on womenmindthewater.com. An audio only version of this podcast is available on the Women Mind the Water website on iTunes and Spotify. Women Mind the Water is grateful to Jaine Rice for the song, Women of Water. All rights for the Women Mind the Water name and logo belong to Pam Ferris-Olson. This is Pam Ferris-Olson. Thank you for listening.
