Soup (2011) Hong Kong Soup: 1826 (2014) Penalty (2013)
Mandy Barker strives to raise awareness about the effects the mountain of plastic waste in the oceans has on marine life and ultimately on our own health.
For her series SOUP, she collected items from this gigantic floating rubbish dump which were washed up on beaches around the world. With her photographs, she makes the death of marine animals trying to eat the plastic and the distribution of plastic in the food chain tangible. The plastic objects in the series HONG KONG SOUP: 1826 derive from thirty beaches in Hong Kong – where 1826 tonnes of plastic is sent to landfill every day. The objects depicted relate to Hong Kong’s culture and traditions. For the series PENALTY, Barker was sent 992 footballs, after an appeal on social media, in the space of four months that were found either in the sea or on the coastline. Barker’s mosaics of arranged waste evoke an emotional response; her photographs’ aesthetic appeal grates with the knowledge of this large-scale environmental pollution.
