Plastic Pollution

While researching the theme for my project I used lens culture to find similar projects surrounding plastic which I could gain inspiration from.  There were many different artists who have done projects involving plastic and also incorporated portrait work which is something I wanted to explore so I found these photographers helped me develop my ideas.

Claire Dekens

The first artist I looked at was Claire Dekens. Claire did a project called drowning in plastic which was about plastic pollution and human exposure. She used big wraps of plastic which she then used in her portraits.

On her blog, which she featured her photographs, Claire explains the effect plastic has on human life and the way it affects our health,

‘Plastic should be recognized as an emerging human health issue. Human exposure can occur through the consumption of contaminated food, water, and air’  (Dekens 2019).

Claire’s project is to represent the dangers that plastic has on human life and how our bodies are affected by plastic toxins contaminating things such as the air we breathe and the food we eat. Her photographs show her subjects almost suffocating in plastic to give that drowning effect and to show that the plastic surrounds them much like it does in our everyday lives.

‘Let’s talk about plastic. There ‘s a lot of it out there. And it ‘s found in places where it shouldn’t be found’ (Dekens 2019).

I particularly liked this quote as I think it sums up perfectly what I want to show in my project. Plastic has become such a global issue and has almost completely overtaken the world a little in the sense that it can be found nearly everywhere but not always in the places it should be. I want to portray the damages of plastic within the environment but also within human life and how it can affect our health.

Bibliography:

C. Dekens, 2019. Drowning in Plastic-the book, Claire Dekens photography, 29 Jan, available at:<https://www.clairedekensphotography.com/drowning-in-plastic-the-book/> (accessed on 08 Nov 19)