Plastic Oceans - Pastel Beach Debris
Photos–
Thirza Schaap
@thirzaschaap
Words–
Lila Theodoros
@ohbabushka
Originally published in Paradiso Issue 4
Thirza Schaap graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 1996. Since then she has been working as a photographer and is now exploring new art forms through her Plastic Ocean project. She has been living and working in Cape Town, South Africa since 2013.
Your work ‘Plastic Ocean’ evokes an emotional response from your audience by creating a contradiction – a clash between initial aesthetic attraction then repulsion at the realisation of the tragedy ‘trash’ causes our oceans! Can you explain the idea behind this?
When walking my dog on the beach I picked up plastic. There was always a attraction and a repulsion, a contradiction what the plastic I found did to me. Something so sad had a certain beauty in it. The colours and the way the pieces looked, worn by the long way they travelled till the moment I picked them up. I started to photograph my finds on the beach. As a photographer I had the urge to document and show it to the world. At first the pictures were not so different from the ones we already see in the media. I wanted to put the feeling in the photographs where I could show the sadness of the treasures I found. My idea was that we need a mild reminder every day to help make your daily choices – like not buying your vegetables in plastic packs. Buy a bamboo toothbrush, refuse the straw and no coffee to go. By ordering a print of the Plastic Ocean series you can have this ‘friendly reminder’ in its apparent beauty but with the strong message in your house. You and your family can make a difference by the choices you make – just do what you can.
Can you tell us a little more about ‘Plastic Ocean’ – how did it all begin?
As a child, I would walk over beaches and through fields and forests to collect beautiful shells, shimmering stones, feathers and funny shaped branches. Much later, after I had moved from Holland to South Africa, I found myself doing the same thing, only to discover that I started filling my pockets with trash instead of treasure.
Plastic from the ocean is colourful and beautiful in its own tragic way. ‘Plastic Ocean’ is an art project that I started to create awareness around pollution and to try and prevent (or at least reduce) the use of plastic.
In making artistic sculptures out of the objects I find, I try to evoke an emotional response from my audience by creating a contradiction. Our beaches are covered in plastic confetti and there really is nothing to celebrate.
What are you currently working on across this project?
I am part of a group exhibition in Makkum at Makkum Art in the Netherlands. On 3 June I have my first solo exhibition in Amsterdam, where I show the work and present a publication about the project. I also have a discussion group in the same week in with environmental magazine OWonder in Amsterdam.
I am also working on a outdoor campaign where we want to have posters at the bus stops protesting the SUP (single use of plastic). We are talking to Greenpeace Africa to see if we can collaborate, since they are planning a big campaign about the SUP.
