The GYRE Expedition and Exhibit - Marine Debris as Material and Message

Today the Alaska Sea Life Center in cooperation with others will send an international team of scientists, artists, and educators out on an expedition to explore the impacts of one of the most prolific cultural artifacts of our modern age, plastic pollution. The expedition will study the global problem of marine pollution using the southwest part of Alaska as their laboratory. This expedition was the vision of Howard Ferren and he will serve as the expedition leader. I had the opportunity to meet Howard at the 5th International Marine Debris Conference in Honolulu in March of 2011, and visited him and his wife at their home in Seward, Alaska later in the year. Howard is a dedicated individual who for many months has worked tirelessly to bring forth his vision (read fund) of blending the interpretive talents of artists and scientists to illuminate the problems resulting from marine pollution to a wider public audience. It is through his efforts that a collaboration of organizations and individuals has been built to realize this expedition.  His vision also included a post-expedition Marine Debris Art Exhibit that will be curated and hosted by the co-sponsor, the Anchorage Museum.

A short video that explains the Expedition concept can be viewed here:

The lead scientist for the Expedition will be Carl Safina, of the Blue Ocean Institute. Carl is a wonderful choice as he is both an accomplished scientist and an eloquent artist as his many books on marine conservation issues will attest to. Pam Longobardi an artist that has been featured in this blog will be one of the 4 artists that participates in the expedition phase of the Gyre project. Pam has been working with marine debris for over 20 years now, and her art has been exhibited internationally. Pam is currently one of the 4 finalists for the $50,000 Visual Arts Hudgens Prize.

Here are just a few examples of her marine debris art;

Ghosts of Consumption by Pam Longobardi, 2012, media: found ocean plastic, steel pins, silicone

Pam has been working alongside Howard to put together a diverse group of international artists that will be collecting marine pollution throughout the expedition. The collected items will be catalogued during the expedition and many of these items will be presented in the Exhibition phase of the project. In addition to the 4 artists taking part in the expedition an additional 16 artists have been invited to contribute to the exhibition which will be exhibited at the Anchorage Museum on February through September 2014. After this initial showing the GYRE exhibit will be repackaged for traveling by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services and will tour museums across the United States.

The photographer for the expedition is Kip Evans. Kip has been working in the marine conservation field for over 20 years. Since 2008 he has worked with Dr. Sylvia Earle serving as director of photography and expeditions for her Mission Blue Hope Spots part of the Sylvia Earle Alliance.

R/V Norseman

The GYRE expedition will be conducted aboard the R/V Norseman. The R/V Norseman is a 108-ft. well appointed ship that has been recently (2005) converted to a full research and exploration platform. The GYRE team should be able to fully explore the southwest Alaska coastline where they will observe, document, and collect shoreline marine pollution.

I hope that you will follow this expedition as it explores the Kenai Peninsula and beyond, here the expedition members will bear witness to the enormity of the global problem of plastic waste that plagues our oceans.

TO LEARN MORE:
GYRE Website
The Anchorage Museum
The Alaska SeaLife Center
Marine Debris Overview – Blue Ocean Institute
GYRE – Marine Debris Fact Sheet
GYRE FACEBOOK PAGE
GYRE – TWITTER
GYRE – YOU TUBE
GYRE – GOOGLE+
GYRE – PINTEREST

Susan Middleton - Portraits of Rare and Endangered Wildlife

Susan Middleton © 2004

This Pacific golden plover, kolea in Hawaiian, was found dead on Midway Atoll after an obviously painful and unsuccessful struggle to free itself from the stranglehold of a red plastic ring caught between its beak and around its neck.  Kolea wintering in the NWHI are safe from predators, but not from the perils of plastic debris littering their feeding grounds.  

Susan Middleton will be another one of the artists exhibiting work at the The Sixth Gyre: Art, Oceans, & Plastic Pollution art exhibit at the 5th International Marine Debris Conference next week in Honolulu, Hawaii. Susan has a long history of exploring the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, more recently leading photography focused Natural History tours to Midway Atoll with Oceanic Society. We are lucky enough to have her striking photographs as part of the group exhibit. Included will be the Pacific Golden Plover image above, that has never been on public display. The images are part of a series of photographs she took in collaboration with another 5IMDC exhibit artist, David Liittschwager. Together the images they produced were part of an assignment for National Geographic that resulted in the wonderful book Archipelago.

David Liittschwager © 2004 Photo 1 (see description)

Susan Middleton © 2004 Photo 2 (see description

The photos pictured to the left are from a series Susan and David shot of an albatross chick they got to know while staying on Kure Atoll, eventually naming the chick "Shed Bird," you can watch a video about the development of this relationship with the chick as told by Susan and David at National Geographic. Photo 1 shows the necropsy of shed bird discovered dead one morning.  The feathers were separated and the chest cavity was sliced open, exposing a huge, lumpy proventriculus (stomach) that was perforated. Then the proventriculus was cut open, exposing plastic—a sharp rectangular piece causing one of the perforations, two disposable cigarette lighters, several bottle caps, an aerosol pump top, a piece of a shotgun shell, broken clothespins, toys, and more. In total, Shed Bird’s proventriculus was stuffed with 12.2 ounces of plastic and other indigestible material, which led to malnutrition, dehydration, and eventually death.  Photo 2 shows the complete contents of Shed Bird’s stomach arranged on a sheet of white plastic, so that everything can be clearly seen.  Albatross chicks eat what their parents feed them, plastic included. Albatrosses feed on the surface of the water, they do not dive for their food.  For tens of thousands of years, albatrosses have foraged where ocean currents come together, feeding on flying fish eggs attached to pieces of floating pumice and driftwood, as well as squid which are driven to the surface by sharks and other large predators.  Only in the last 50 years has plastic also accumulated along these same currents convergence zones.  These currents bring in a variety of plastics including: pieces of shotgun shells, paintbrushes, pump spray nozzles, toothpaste tube caps, clothespins, buckles, toys, just to name a few.

It will be great to have Susan's personal exploration of this topic on display at the exhibit. She will also be attending the conference, occasionally available at the Exhibit to talk to individuals that come to see this collection of similarly focused art. Susan's most recent book is called Evidence of Evolution (Abrams 2009). She has also written the following introduction to her work exhibited in the conference, detailing how she was drawn to the environmental topic of marine pollution: 

"My work has focused on the portraiture of rare and endangered wildlife for over twenty five years. I have tried to help give these creatures a voice since they cannot speak for themselves. I began in California, then expanded to the continental United States, then Hawaii, the endangered species capital of the world. Most recently I have worked in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, the most remote part of the most remote archipelago in the world. Here I witnessed the most pristine and intact ecosystems I had ever experienced, and I began making portraits of life beneath the waves, exploring the marine environment. I was in one of the most remote places on the planet; this was a place where wildlife reigned, it was not just a novelty. It belonged to the wildlife, and I felt like I was in someone else’s home. And what did I discover? An incomprehensible amount of marine pollution, debris washed up on the beaches on all the islands, and then, even more disturbing, evidence of plastic pollution infecting the digestive systems of seabirds. Lesson learned? Nowhere is remote now. Nowhere is separated and immune from the impacts of human actions. I could not look away, and felt compelled to visually convey what I witnessed through my photographs."