Public Engagement

Posted by jcb990 on April 15, 2019 in #LitterCUBES, Public Engagement, Uncategorized

#EDSCIFEST

Great week working with young people at #EDSCIFEST at Dynamic Earth. A chance to examine one of the most common litter items and common forms of plastic PET [Polyethylene terephthalate] that ends up in our seas.

Visitors joined me to calculate how much energy (petrol) we can save by recycling plastic bottle. Bottles weighed 11 – 45 grams and using an Embodied Energy formula for PET we calculated that the energy value of 100 bottles each weighing 30 grams would contain the energy/petrol equivalent to travel 84 km in a small car, or 385 calories, enough energy to walk 7km. Thought provoking images and values to share and make us all determined to make sure we don’t drop but recycle all our bottles. Thanks to everyone who attended, donated bottles and helped out with the event. Looking forward to bringing all the #LitterCUBES to #EDSCIFEST 2020.

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 January 17, 2019 in Uncategorized

Inspiring…..

…community members of Dunbar joined me at Dunbar Harbour on Tuesday night to hear discuss how I’m planning to make two #LitterCUBE sculptures at the harbour, using discarded, washed up plastic drinks bottles and net ends commonly found in the harbour and along the local beaches. I shared how I want to make the sculptures to highlight the plastic leaking into the sea and the value of this plastic that’s being wasted.

We had a wonderful and exciting exchange of ideas, followed by great suggestions of how to link into the towns many environmental and arts activities . The upshot is we have begun a great supportive net-work, as strong as the net I will be sewing together to make a #LitterCUBE from.

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Residents…… teachers……. arts organisers……. the harbour trustees…….. artists……. marine biologist…… parents and a business manager at the meeting wonderfully offered support and suggested that I aim to stage the event in June, to link into Dunbar Civic week and North Light Arts Sea Change exhibition.

June 10th-23rd : proposed dates for making the#LitterCUBES in Dunbar . More detail about events to be added as soon as I am clear about the funding situation. Anyone can help by collecting materials for the #LitterCUBES which will be stored at the Harbour. Please get in touch if you can help.

Thanks to the Dunbar Harbour Trust (and Quentin Dimmer, the Harbour Master) for hosting the event and North Light Arts for helping with promoting the evening event.

You can help to ensure this event happens by making a donation here on the site . Press DONATE to project at the top of the page. Thank you !

Posted by jcb990 on September 21, 2018 in Uncategorized

Over the past few weeks I have been testing out potential support in new coastal locations where I intend making a number of my #LitterCUBES next year. DlJUsIfWsAARQwP

DlIIFDSU0AARA36 — Eyemouth Harbour & beach

Invitations from the Hippodrome arts venue in Eyemouth and the Angus Coastal Festival led me to share my entangled arts/science journey with marine litter in illustrated talks over the past few weeks, in a gallery and during practical workshops on the beaches. Over 100 interested residents eagerly asked questions about my findings and were keen to talk through local beach litter issues, e.g. takeaway food litter in Eyemouth and broken Creel components in Angus- all were concerned about the volume of fishing litter washed up and intrigued to talk through my idea of making big #LitterCUBES out of litter specific to their coast line.

Our East Haven group collecting less easily seen plastic particles Angus Coastal Festival

Such informal interactive events like these are at the core of my work. An Eyemouth resident after studying my working drawings (below) showing how I will calculate the energy loss that a CUBE represents, in terms of litres of petrol – suggested I also calculate the loss of energy in terms of calories. A great suggestion especially for younger members of the the public i.e. this CUBE has the same energy as ’50 fish suppers’

CUBE construction diagram

In addition to ideas and offers of help, many donations were made to my Just Giving #LitterCUBE appeal, which has today reached £1,314. I still need to raise another £686 so please pass on the link to as many people as you can. Take a look at the appeal video showing one of the making processes. Thank you to everyone who has donated!

I am available and happy to give illustrated talks and run close examination beach workshops to groups in return for a fee/donation towards making the 30 sculptures in 2019 Please get in touch. I took the project story south to Anglesey last week and made interesting coastal connections with Bangor U3A & Friends of The Anglesey Coastal Path

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.

Footnote RELATE NORTH – Art and Design for Education and Sustainability 2017 EXHIBITION runs from 12th November – 30th November 2017 Thematic Network on Arctic Sustainable Arts and Design: http://www.asadnetwork.org University of the Arctic: http://www.uarctic.org/

Posted by jcb990 on June 7, 2017 in Uncategorized

VOTE #CleanSeas

Sticks X WorldOceansDay 8th June 2017

2017 Election: VOTE #CleanSeas is up and running here on-line or at the NEO Terra exhibition @AnTallaSolais from 10am Argyle St, Ullapool

Many thanks for taking time to register your VOTE – all feedback about your experience of this and/or other @LittoralArt events you have taken part in, will be much appreciated and useful in arguing the case for support of public engagement Art Events/Exhibitions .

Comments can be left at the end of the Poll in the ‘Other’ box or by clicking on the comment button below.

Poster extract (2) If you would like to download an Isle of CHANGE chart in celebration of World Oceans Day 2017 please click Isle of CHANGE

Please share the link and use the image to make a difference with thanks to Creative Scotland

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Posted by jcb990 on May 15, 2017 in Uncategorized

‘Challenging installation’

Very happy to have achieved the installation of NEO Terra: my multi-media interactive exhibition at An Talla Solais’s gallery in Ullapool. The preview was well attended helped by a flurry of invitation Tweets and re tweets, plus the BBC coverage . Many thanks to all.

All exhibitions are challenging to install, this one included, the ‘minimal look’ of the overall exhibition belies the amount of focused and time consuming work required to set up the 10 x 2 m canvas, assemble 12 islands from over a thousand of pieces of melted plastic, video animation, 4 sculptures, 3 large wall drawings, 2 printed charts, Plastiglomerate cross section and the all important interactive lab space comprising: Plastiglomerate sample point , magnification and monitor station , lightbox installation, 60 glass vials containing sand samples. ready for examination. ,

The projects ethos of public engagement continued through to the installation process and each day local members of the arts and science community called by to help carry, draw, provide sustenance and encouragement. So THANK YOU to Alice (from Shetland), John , Ailsa (on loan from Visit Scotland) Sara & Jan from Ceard, Milly, Erin, Rosanne, Caroline, Susan, Eileen, Daniel, ATS and Creative Scotland. (team shot to follow)

The first comment I over-heard at the preview assured me that our hard work was worth it, as an audience member stepped into the main gallery facing the long floor installation stretching 10 meters in front of him, promptly turned and said ‘this is a bit challenging’

The show runs every day 10-5pm until Sunday the 18^th June at An Talla Solais , Market St, Ullapool.(link)

Connected event Walk into Deep Time as part of the Isle Martin Festival (link)

If you are unable to visit the show you can view the NEO Terra clip of the exhibition from Shetland by Clicking here

Again thanks to Creative Scotland

	Geri Lawhon on Shoreline Energy
	jcb990 on Counterbalance
	Helen O'Connell on Counterbalance
	jcb990 on Looking to 2020
	jcb990 on Kelp – Spring Tides

littoral: sci-art project

to examine and draw awareness to beach litter and its effects

Tag: Public Engagement

#EDSCIFEST

Spring collection

Inspiring…..