Each of the items on this 6 ft handcrafted net is familiar, colorful, and even playful. Behind each is a story that we might otherwise be unaware.  The fragment of a flip flop found on a beach represents the tiniest portion of the three billion petroleum-based flip flops produced worldwide annually. As enormous a number as that is, it is only a fraction of the number of plastic items that finds its way into rivers and oceans around the globe. Plastic items are readily available, cheap, and easy to use. They also are easy to discard. And as the saying “out of sight, out of mind” suggests, we don’t give much thought to what happens after items go out in the trash. Trapped in Heart of the Problem are a few of these items focusing attention on a few of the stories.

Entangled up in Blue is a collaborative project conceived and designed for a dance performance by Dale Andree’s NWD Projects. The performance and installation premiered at the I heART Ocean exhibition on October 22, 2022, in Portland, Maine. The inspiration for the installation was the global problem known as “ghost gear”, a metaphor for lost fishing gear that remains unseen and long-lived below the surface of the ocean. The problem arises because modern fishing gear is made predominately of synthetic or semi-synthetic material that doesn’t decompose. It is estimated that between 5-30 percent of global harvestable fish stocks are killed annually by ghost gear making it a major threat to global food security and the livelihoods of coastal communities that depend on fisheries.

(C2H4)elonia is a portmanteau word combining the green sea turtle’s genus Chelonia with the chemical formula for polyethylene (C2H4)n, the most widely utilized plastic in the world. Polyethylene is used to make such things as clear food wrap and shopping bags, detergent bottles, and so much more. Merging Chelonia with the abbreviated chemical formula for polyethylene recognizes that plastic is an ever-present component of the sea turtle’s life. Sea turtles, which are estimated to consume more than 70 percent of their weight daily often ingest plastic along with their natural food stuffs. Large plastic bags cause suffocation and intestinal blockage while smaller microplastics accumulate in the gut and eventually lead to starvation.

A grocery cart filled with plastic juice and milk bottles and adorned with plastic bags, fishing line and a Styrofoam buoy asks is this Your Cart? Would you be surprised to learn that a single individual is responsible for the plastic waste contained in the cart’s basket and it was produced in only a few months’ time? Affixed to the plastic bottles are specially designed labels. They call attention to the impact of human activity on the marine environment. The video screen in the cart’s child seat displays images of the cart posed in coastal places plastic is found and often unclaimed largely because it is viewed as someone else’s problem.

Window with Ocean Vus provides a glimpse into our coastal waterways. These waters are full of life including algae, a basic and important basis for all other life, yet increasingly, they are filled by man-made objects that wash off the land, are carried in by the wind and dumped accidentally and purposefully by humans. Some items decompose while others, like plastic, remain unchanged for decades and remain forever. The nautical flags keep visitors at a distance and warn of dangerous cargo (solid red) and “standing” into danger (red and white squares). Further commentary come from depressing the button that triggers the voices of artivists and scanning the QR code that links to Ballet Plastique, a video creation by Pam Ferris-Olson.  

TThe ocean carries a staggering load of plastic waste. The world annually produces hundreds of millions of metric tons of plastic. There is enough in the ocean to cover every foot of coastline with five shopping bags each filled with plastic. Much of the plastic produced is used for packaging. It is appropriate that the 7 ft. high Sea You Again is constructed of HDPE plastic beverage carriers. This plastic is sturdy and does not degrade; instead, it fragments into ever smaller pieces. Eventually, the plastic pieces become to too small to be seen by the naked eye. It continues to exist as a part of the ocean food chain, taking on a life of its own, one with negative consequences for all living creatures.