Art that speaks for the sea: Mandy Barker’s mission to end fast fashion waste • FRANCE 24 English
[Music] today we’re exploring the powerful impact of one artist’s work on raising awareness about the dangers of fast fashion so powerful in fact that she’s received letters from people pledging to stop buying clothes for an entire year i started noticing plastic washing up on my local beach dresses shoes tights underwear swimming costume fancy dress school uniform i began to realize that over consumption is just such a huge and massive problem and I think we’ve just lost track of what’s valuable mandy Barker is an award-winning photographic artist her striking images reveal the devastating impact of plastic pollution on marine life climate change and our own well-being her work challenges us all to take action to mark World Oceans Day and ahead of the UN Ocean Conference taking place in Nice in the south of France we’re delighted to welcome the British artist to the show mandy joinsed us down the line from Leeds mandy welcome to the show thank you so much for joining us i wondered can you start by telling us about that moment back in 2012 when you mistook a piece of cloth for seaweed and how that started this journey for you yes thank you very much for having me yes um I found a piece of what I thought was seaweed in a rockpool uh and when I pulled it out I realized it was a strip of um polyester uh synthetic fibers material um and over the years after that I began to collect solid objects from the beach and I noticed there were always items of clothing along the shoreline so this got me thinking about doing a project about synthetic uh materials and fast fashion and your latest project which is called Photographs of British Algae reimagines a 19th century botanical masterpiece by Anna Atkins now she created the world’s first cyanotype photographic book by capturing images of seaweed using the same process you’ve actually transformed discarded clothing found on the beach into haunting blueprints now this is really a poetic urgent reminder of how our throwaway culture leaves its mark around the world what inspired you to use this historic photographic technique to highlight the issue of fast fashion waste today i think at the start uh the pieces of clothing that I was finding were beginning to look a bit like algae and when I came across Anna Atkins work I realized that back then in the 1800s you know this sort of issue wasn’t apparent um we didn’t have clothing floating around in the ocean so I thought that if I could use this um historical um process and technique I could raise awareness of this current um climate issue and you collected clothing waste from more than 120 locations around Britain’s coastlines um can you share a particularly striking or memorable piece that you found and what it represented for you um yes that’s true um it’s over many many years from Johns in the north to L’s end in the south um I found just about every item of clothing imaginable um from underwear from fancy dress outfits from school uniforms um everything that we uh consume in terms of clothing um yeah I mean not nothing in particular but just the amount and the wide selection it just makes you think about how much we consume um you know in terms of clothing and considering we’ve got enough clothing on the planet now for the next six generations it’s a particularly shocking amount now so many artists Mandy are inspired by the sea i want to share the powerful work of French magnum photographer Jean Gome now his images explore life at sea after decades spent sailing the oceans gome has been awarded the official title of naval artist for more than 40 years his evocative images have captured life at sea his exhibition Jean Gome and the sea is a moving exploration of humanity’s connection to the ocean told through the lens of one of France’s most respected visual storytellers charlotte Prudom went to meet him his subjects have included fishermen at work and the women on land who got the catch to sell at market jeangi is a decorative photographer of the sea he has captured the power of storms and tempests documented expeditions to the poles and immortalized the powerlessness of man in the face of the shipwreck of the Erica this will never happen again it’s unbelievable that it did you’re in a science fiction vessel some sort of spaceship you’ve got two guys who are experienced in towing and saving ships at sea and then there’s the Erica in complete disarray already broken in two you can’t see it very well there but those guys are looking at the situation like us it would have been unbearable to miss that image the tanker sank off the coast of Britany in 1999 releasing 20,000 tons of fuel into the ocean but Jeongi’s first love was fishing and capturing a scene a moment sometimes at great personal risk you feel a bit responsible for how things will be remembered doing it well with all of your aesthetic skills and without being an activist you are involved you get your hands dirty you really do you aren’t there to be a tourist the Paris Navy Museum is exhibiting nearly 150 photos by Jeani he always seeks out proximity with his subjects there’s an expression he uses altogether alone so he tries to share every day with the people he photographs to understand what they live with what they’re subjected to and to record the world as it is today jeongi’s work provides an insight into the human lives of our oceans on the same theme the museum is running another photography exhibition through a historical lens entitled fishing beyond the cliches and that exhibition at the Paris um Navy Museum in Par um runs until August i’m joined down the line now by British artist Mandy Barker for World Oceans Day which is the 8th of June the UN Ocean Conference also takes place in Nice between the 9th and the 13th of June mandy some of your work is actually being showcased during this um conference what message do you hope that decision makers and the public will take away um from your work about the urgency of protecting our oceans i hope that people look at my work you know initially they’re drawn in by the attractive aesthetics but then when they read what it represents it’s almost like a stab in the back you know it’s a kind of a shock as to what we’re actually uh consuming on a huge um you know a huge amount and then how it’s ending up in the oceans um you know the whole point of the UNOC is to um you know accelerate action and conserve and sustain the ocean so this is one of those important messages that I hope they’ll take on board and Mandy despite the scale of the problem what has given you hope for the future of our oceans um the INC um you know they’re coming together to um you know make international legislation so all c all countries are going to hopefully come together and sign an international agreement to stop plastic pollution um there’s a lot of awareness now and a lot of people are doing um you know trying to sort of make changes so that’s really um good to see so if there was one change each of us could make today to reduce plastic pollution in our oceans and what would that change be for people watching at home well the first thing is to stop producing so much um unnecessary plastic uh on a personal level we can choose not to buy things in plastic you know there’s many alternatives um and also to try and reuse what we’ve already got um you know we need to redesign and create new materials so there is no end of use you know it stays within the circular economy and we’re not continually producing and Mandy we’re going to wrap up with the trailer for Ocean it’s the latest documentary from legendary um British naturalist Sir David Atenburgh um through breathtaking imagery Atenburgh reminds us that of the beauty and fragility of our oceans and the vital need to protect them i know you’ve actually been in touch with um Sir David himself what does his support mean to you personally what has he said to you um he’s he’s written several handwritten letters to me over the years supporting my work and what I do um he’s been a huge inspiration since I was very young watching all his program programs and you know how he supports and delivers um you know nature around the world into our own homes through films uh and it means an awful lot that somebody so iconic um you know has taken notice and encouraged me okay Mandy Barker it’s been a pleasure to have you on the show thank you for joining us let’s keep the conversation going and continue to protect our blue planet together see you next time after living for nearly 100 years on this planet I now understand the most important place on Earth is not on land but at sea through the course of my life we have been on a voyage of ocean discovery only now are we understanding what it means for the future of our world what we have found could change everything for once you’ve truly seen the sea you’ll never look at Earth in the same way again
In this special edition for World Oceans Day, we spotlight the urgent, haunting work of Mandy Barker, the award-winning British photographic artist using sea-salvaged fashion waste to expose the truth about plastic pollution. Her cyanotype series “Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections” reimagines the work of 19th-century botanist Anna Atkins, replacing seaweed with clothing scraps collected from 121 beaches around the UK. The result is both poetic and jarring, earning praise from none other than Sir David Attenborough, who supports Barker’s work for its power to inspire real change.
#MandyBarker #UnitedNationsOceansConference #UNOC3
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1 comment
I wished you had showed more of Mandy’s artwork as these seem really stunning!
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