November 2017 – littoral: sci-art project

Event: 13th December 2017 The Scottish Parliament David Livingston Room

Julia Barton, in partnership with the Marine Conservation Society, will be hosting a #CleanBeachesScotland event at Holyrood to celebrate new and successful ways of tackling marine litter in Scotland and the next steps Scotland needs to take.

This collaborative Sci-Art event is open to MSPs, researchers and invited guests. The #CleanBeachesScotland Exhibition will be on show along with key information displays from:

SAMS – Scottish Association for Marine Science
SAT – Shetland Amenity Trust
FIDRA – Environmental Charity based in East Lothian
KIMO – Local Authorities International Environmental Organisation
MCS – Marine Conservation Society

Audience members include a wide range of experts – marine biologists, community engagement groups, harbour masters, waste management consultants, ecologists and environmental group representatives from across Scotland, who will be on hand to discuss the issues and explore how we can achieve #CleanBeachesScotland.

Calum Duncan, Head of Conservation Scotland for the Marine Conservation Society has said: ‘Public awareness and media profile of our seas and the threats they face has never been higher. This exciting and timely event will shed light on the dire impacts of marine litter on our beaches and marine wildlife, but will also celebrate some of the ways we’re tackling this problem, and galvanise support for the many actions still needed to clean up our seas.’

Exhibition: 12th-14th December 2017 The Scottish Parliament Member’s Lobby.

Artist Julia Barton has been creatively investigating beach litter with coastal communities, for over 4 years. Thousands of hours spent on beaches has given her an utterly unique insight into the way plastic has become part of our environment, and this exhibition charts her extraordinary process of discovery. Julia’s novel way of widely engaging communities has recently been acknowledged with a 2017 Shetland Environmental Award for her Littoral Art Project work in the isles. It also prompted an invitation to Holyrood to inform MSPs of her observations at the shoreline from the micro to the macro point of view.

Julia will be presenting her Littoral Art Project exhibition to MSP’s for the first time in Holyrood. The #CleanBeachesScotland exhibition will showcase evidence collected from 120 Scottish beaches, highlighting just how much plastics have become part of the environment and the cost this represents to our society. An installation of collected plastics, based on Julia’s recent NEO Terra exhibition shown in both Shetland and the Highlands (link to review), will also inform the event.

Julia and her colleague Sita Goudie from the Shetland Amenity Trust’s Dunna Chuck Bruck Campaign will be sharing their knowledge of what works at a community level, as well as successful projects and initiatives for #CleanBeachesScotland. They will be asking MSPs to pledge action and support to reduce, recover and recycle waste within our economy rather than allow it to leach into the marine environment.

Next year Julia intends to create giant #LitterCUBES to display in harbours and streets, thereby confronting people with the volume of litter we are facing and the monetary loss to the economy that our plastic pollution represents. If anyone would like to know more about this, please contact Julia: littoralartproject@btinternet.com.

Julia has received Creative Scotland awards supported by The National Lottery for the original Littoral Art Project R&D and NEO Terra exhibition

Notes to Editors:

ORGANISATIONS/PRESS : If you would like to join us for the #CleanBeachesScotland Event on 13^th December please get in touch ASAP: Julia Barton: 07977997605; littoralartproject@btinternet.com

NOTE: Due to security restrictions, you must confirm the name of the person(s) attending the event, by 1^st December, to ensure they are on the guest list

Please note, due to security reasons, the exhibition is in an area only open to members. However, the exhibition will be moved to the David Livingston room for the event, giving press and invited guests the chance to see it.

For more information of the artist’s work visit: www.littoralartproject.com

Current events and wider lobbying can be followed @LittoralArt

Comments from Julia’s recent exhibitions can be viewed at: https://littoralartproject.com/neo-terra-exhibition-comments/

Further information on the Marine Conservation Society at: www.mcsuk.org/

Further information on the Shetland Amenity Trust: www.shetlandamenity.org/

Dunna Chuck Bruck Facebook page: www.facebook.com/Dunnachuckbruck/

Today artist’s working across the Arctic are coming together to share their work at the 2017 RELATE NORTH Symposium at the University of Lapland, Rovaniem – while I am sadly unable to be there a piece of my work from my NEO Terra exhibition will be on exhibit alongside those of artists working in Finland, Canada, Scotland, Alaska, Russia, Somi Republic, Norway and Sweden.

The piece I have sent is one of my #LitterCUBES, made from plastic particles collected from along the strandlines of Shetlands beaches during my residency there in 2016.

#LitterCUBE 2016 – is a compressed assemblage of mixed polymers Polyethylene terephthalate [PE-PET -PETE] Compressed assemblage 5 x 5 x 5 cm.

In 2014, Rachel W. Obbard recorded 38 – 234 particles of microplastics per cubic metre of Arctic ice. Globalwarming releases microplastic legacy in Arctic Sea ice

52 of the 60 beach sand/substrate samples I collected from Shetland contained plastic particles . Many of the strandlines were thick with plastic fibres and particles. In extreme instances the fibres & particles mound up metres deep – the link to their source ropes/nets/cord of the commercial fishing industry is plain to see.

GEDSC DIGITAL CAMERA

The consequences of such pollution are thankfully increasingly being monitored by scientists like Obbard. And marine biologists like Winnie Courtene-Jones who are researching and documenting the effects of micro-plastics on invertebrates in the Deep Sea. Plastic has been ingested by marine organisms as small as Sand-hoppers and Algae at the bottom of the food chain . The consequences of this pollution is ironically massive for the fishing industry . Below are a few of the creative community workshop images envisaging the issue of plastic fibres taken on during my project.

My visual essay of my work in Shetland is being published by the University of Lapland Press this week and will shortly be available on-line.

Shetland’s Littoral Zones: An art-science project revealing the legacies of plastic pollution on beaches in the north of Scotland.consequences of plastic leaking into Northern ecosystems.