Don’t miss this 12 week online exhibition of Our Plastic Ocean, by international award-winning photographer Mandy Barker. This digital experience features artwork and specially developed content including newly recorded audio commentary from Mandy Barker, and exclusive behind-the-scenes images revealing the making of the work. 

Launching as part of National Marine Week, Our Plastic Ocean features as part of Brighton Museums’ wider digital project, Ocean Blues. This online platform is dedicated to exploring the environmental threats to our oceans, the importance of research into our seas and some of the Sussex environmental heroes and organisations dedicated to supporting them.

Our Plastic Ocean addresses the current global crisis of marine plastic pollution.  Barker collects debris from shorelines across the world and transforms them into powerful and captivating images. At first glance, Barker’s images are reminiscent of sea creatures and corals suspended in a dark void beneath the sea, but closer inspection reveals a more disturbing reality.  From footballs to fishing nets, cotton-buds to coffee-cup lids, Barker highlights the incongruous plastic items now ubiquitous in our seas. Currently, 8 million tonnes of plastic end up in the world’s oceans every year and if these trends continue, our oceans could contain more plastic than fish by 2050.

From accompanying scientists on an expedition from Hawaii to Japan, tracing the debris of the 2011 Tsunami, to a voyage on board Greenpeace’s Beluga II to the Inner Hebrides, Mandy Barker has followed a trail of plastic pollution across the globe. The images resulting from these expeditions have become some of the most recognisable visual commentary on marine plastic pollution.

The online exhibition is part of the ongoing national tour of Our Plastic Ocean, originally shown at impressions Gallery in Summer 2019.

An Impressions Gallery Touring Exhibition curated by Angela Sheard.