Judith and Richard Lang have been combing their local beach in Point Reyes National Seashore in Northern California since 1999, collecting the plastic debris of our daily lives: cheese spreaders form those packaged lunches, milk jug lids, disposable lighters. They cart home this junk, clean and categorize it, and finally transform it into gorgeous assemblages. It’s meticulous, artisanal up-cycling and it’s both beautiful and sad.
The Langs have an exhibit running currently at the San Francisco Public Library and GOOD caught up with Judith recently to talk about her process and where all those plastic cigar tips come from.
More: Found Art: Just Like Diamonds, Plastics Are Forever - Design - GOOD
We’ve covered the Langs before, but this interview is worth checking out if you don’t know their work. (Plus, I like this picture.)
And while you’re at it, take a dip into other Unconsumption coverage of beach debris!
Israeli designer Koby Sibony creates sculptures from plastic and other trash washed up on beaches.
(via Design Milk)
The Ocean Conservancy, which organizes an annual International Coastal Clean-Up, has published its results in the 2012 Trash Index. You’re not imagining it: as the global population swells, tankers continue to leak oil, and plastic water bottles continue to be our favorite way to drink tap water, the world’s beaches are getting dirtier.
Nearly 600,000 volunteers worked in multiple countries to pick up and record the over nine million pounds of trash listed in this report. Check out their trashy findings, download a helpful pocket guide to recycling and if you’re inclined, donate to help their efforts. And for the love of all things oceanic, if you smoke, find a better place than the ocean or ground to throw your cigarette butts (the number one piece of trash found on beaches)!
Image: Ocean Conservancy
So much ocean trash! Of course, what’s key is finding ways to prevent trash from reaching our waterways in the first place. From looking at the above chart, reducing our use of single-use, disposable items could make a difference.
With so much trash washing ashore, it’s no surprise to come across artists who use beach debris as raw material. We’ve highlighted a handful of them on Unconsumption here.
Hundreds of smooth shards of glass collected from area beaches comprise each piece of Cornwall, UK-based artist Jonathan Fuller’s work.
View his gallery of sea glass assemblages here.
For artwork made from debris washed ashore on California, Australia, and east Africa beaches, see earlier Unconsumption posts here, here, and here.
Liz Jones is an artist and crafter who has been collecting discarded objects washed up on the shore of Melbourne’s urban beaches. Wave worn, sun bleached and scarred, these finds are collected and collated by type or colour. Liz says,”I wanted to show the slightly disturbing nature of human need for disposable plastic, and the fact that these everyday items tend to last for an indefinite time after they are disposed of. I am attracted to the variety of rainbow hues and the contrast of beauty and ugliness.”
Reclaiming flip flops
Flip flops are reclaimed after a long journey across the ocean
“After a long trip through Asia or Africa they end up in sewers and in the ocean. Then they are washed up on the shores of Eastern Africa. There they are found, collected, and eventually reclaimed. Turned into a collection of sustainable design objects in which the eventful travel tales of worn Flip Flops is captured and translated.”
This video, titled One Plastic Beach (length 8:32), tells the story behind the environmental artwork and messages of Richard Lang and Judith Selby Lang, who’ve collected tons of plastic trash washed ashore on a 1,000-yard stretch of beach:
In 1999, we started collecting plastic debris — carrying it away by the bagful — all from Kehoe Beach, a remote stretch of the Point Reyes National Seashore, in Northern California. Certain items would catch our interest: milk jug lids, combs, toy soldiers, disposable lighters, cheese spreaders from lunch snack packs. We were attracted to things that would show by their numbers and commonness what is happening in the oceans around the world.
We use the plastic to make artworks including large sculptures, installations, photo tableaus and jewelry. While the content of our work has a message about the spoiling of the natural world by the industrial world, our final intent is aesthetic and celebratory.
The Langs’ Web site: beachplastic.com.
Other plastic-related posts: http://unconsumption.tumblr.com/tagged/plastic
(spotted on Twitter, via @ecoartnotes and @jamesaldridge4)
