As artist in residence for StAnza 2019/20, I responded to the work of German poet and artist Arne Rautenberg, who took part in StAnza 2019, and particularly to Arne’s poem 'I declare the plastic debris of the oceans'.
The following compositions are based on plastic debris gathered at Dunbar harbour. I studied the shapes of each piece and collaged them as a way to create new sea life. Plastics, in the Anthropocene, have become new creatures of the sea, their presence threatening true biological life forms and the health of the oceans. This piece asks whether we can, while lamenting the sins of our species, on some level, find beauty in the world as we have made it.
