Entanglement (2021)
This photographic series replaces the animals and sea life that get trapped in plastic and switches them with human beings. This change depicts the entanglement of human beings within the issue of plastic pollution. Drawing on my background in dance and choreography I chose to use dancers attempting to maneuver the plastic sheeting. An overwhelming amount of plastic consumes the performers and interferes with their physical intelligence. As seen in the images, the dancers are reaching, jumping, and tugging to break free from their plastic restraints. In this collection of photographs humanity confronts its synthetic creation within the natural environment that is vulnerable to pollution because of our over consumption of plastic.
Billions of pounds of plastic can be found in swirling convergences that make up about 40 percent of the world's ocean surfaces. Floating plastic debris are currently the most abundant items of marine litter. Waste plastic makes up 80% of all marine debris from surface waters to deep-sea sediments. Thousands of seabirds and sea turtles, seals and other marine mammals suffer and die each year after ingesting plastic or getting entangled in it.
The purpose of this series is to show the connection between the association of dancers with graceful movement and the necessity to move for sea life’s survival being inhibited by plastic. To convey this I asked the dancers to move as if the plastic is hindering their ability to navigate the environment. The dancers pulled from the ideas of claustrophobia, suffocation, escape, and entanglement to be in the mindset of the sea life impacted by plastic pollution.
Source: Center for Biological Diversity, The Plastic-Production Problem