#LitterCUBES – littoral: sci-art project

Posted by jcb990 on September 25, 2020 in Uncategorized

Counterbalance

I am often asked how I continue to work with marine litter year after year, fortunately I have a counterbalance, my love of seaweed. Seaweed has proven to be a beautiful counterbalance and antidote to my work with plastic beach litter. I recently shared my story with the Marine Conservation Society and Salvage Scotland.

Over the coming months I will be featuring exciting plans for the re-scheduled ‘Isle Martin Seaweed Festival’ #YCW2020 now taking place in 2021. I talk more about the festival in my recent conversation with John Ennis, Curator of Salvage Scotland’s Design Journey Journey to Isle Martin with artist Julia Barton .

Journey to Isle Martin with artist Julia Barton

To read more of my balancing act with litter and seaweed, visit the Marine Conservation Society Magazine for my interview with Clare Fischer ‘Seaweed, Science and Installations’.

Working on #LitterCUBES photo: @paulbartondop

While I continue to weave and thread marine litter, I will share my love of seaweed on Instagram @ju liabartonartist

Take a look. Please leave a comment/like here or on the above website links. Thank You!

Posted by jcb990 on February 12, 2020 in #LitterCUBES, Uncategorized

Oil: Making the Connection

I want to produce a short film to show the connection between plastic waste and the loss of oil that it represents. During my #LitterCUBES events 2019, I found that hundreds of people were unaware that plastic is primarily made from oil.

I plan to work again with Shetland film maker JJ Jamieson. I intend the film to be projected with the #LitterCUBES in the lead up to Cop26 Climate Conference. I need £2,500 to cover the very basic costs of making and editing the film.

You can make a donation by clicking on the orange DONATE button at the top of the page. In return you will receive a limited edition print of my ‘2020 Message in a Bottle’ photograph. Thank you!

Many thanks to all of the following for supporting the making of the #LitterCUBES: Ullapool Harbour Trust, Coigach & Assynt Living Landscape, the Heritage Lottery Fund and Scottish Natural Heritage, and for donations from: individuals, Eyemouth Marine Ltd, rag, Sheihallion, Ullapool Harbour Trust and support in kind from Eyemouth Harbour, Dunbar Harbour Trust plus North Light Arts and An Talla Solais for their support with the #LitterCUBES events. Thanks also to volunteers and all those who donated money to make these events possible.

Posted by jcb990 on April 30, 2019 in #LitterCUBES, Public Engagement

PROCESS VOLUNTEER DONATE

This week the big processing job gets underway starting with the bags of plastic litter collected from West Highland beaches. The most recent from community litter picking events at Ullapool, Badentarbet, Isle Martin and Red Point.

PLEASE KEEP THE LITTER COMING the more items are collected, the bigger the sculptures. Plastic pollution is a massive waste of energy we can save.

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Please get in touch if you would like to volunteer and get involved. It’s always easier with helpers. Processing involves sorting, taking notes, photographing, washing and drying.

Thanks to all my supporters and for donations from: individuals, Eyemouth Marine Ltd, rag, Sheihallion, Coigach & Assynt Living Landscape, the Heritage Lottery Fund and Scottish Natural Heritage, Ullapool Harbour Trust and support in kind from Eyemouth, Dunbar, Arbroath, Lerwick, Ullapool Harbours, An Talla Solais, North Light Arts.

I am continuing to seek funding from small trusts, companies and individuals as unfortunately Littoral Art Project didn’t get further funding from Creative Scotland. Please spread the word that Donations are very much needed and can be made here by pressing the orange DONATE button at the top of the page

Press release: is available here. Please help by sending to a national paper or magazine.

Posted by jcb990 on March 11, 2019 in #LitterCUBES, Uncategorized

Spring collection

As the spring tides roll in, I am making a call-out for thousands of plastic litter items with which I will make 12 sculptures #LitterCUBES this year.

Landscape poster with list of litter items If you, your friends, beach cleaning groups, schools, business’s can help please get in touch. I am asking people to collect seven “known offenders” to illustrate the volume, nature and energy contained in the plastic litter on our beaches. collection list I am arranging for collection barrels to be placed in the locations I will be working in and I will send out bags and labels for posting smaller items like fishing line and cotton bud sticks. #LitterCUBES will be completed and shown at the following locations in 2019 dates for blog This project is being made possible with partial funding from individual donations, r.a.g and Schallion co-operative giving collectives, Tayside Biodiversity Partnership , Eyemouth Marine and with much in-kind support from Eyemouth, Ullapool, Dunbar Harbour Trusts and Eyemouth and Ullapool arts centres.

I am waiting for decisions on several applications, but the project still needs your continued support. Please donate using the DONATE button at the top of this page.

Click here for more information about the #LitterCUBES project

Posters available to advertise beach collections – leave a request in the comment box

Posted by jcb990 on July 9, 2018 in Uncategorized

Invest in Me

Julia Barton, Portobello photo by Penny Haywood Calder

To make a series of 30 large sculptures #LitterCUBES from plastic beach litter collected from shorelines around Scotland in 2019, to show the link between plastic and oil. I want to engage people in weighing the #LitterCUBES to calculate how many litres of petrol each CUBE represents .

Donations of any amount are welcomed to start the fundraising to make the sculptures, so we can visualise the true cost of plastic pollution. Visit my Just-Giving crowd funding page to learn more and to donate.

Cotton bud CUBE EEc 2

Click below to listen to a Podcast explaining the background to the #LitterCUBES

CUBE construction diagram

There are limited edition prints of small # LitterCUBE surfaces to win.

Please pass on the Just Giving link and leave suggestions of how to promote the appeal. Thank you!

Posted by jcb990 on November 10, 2017 in Uncategorized

Relate North

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.

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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.