Sea of Expansion, a Subtly Ironic Reminder of Our Environmental Impact
They are despised by many, cities and countries around the world have begun to ban them: plastic bags.
Artist Julie Brookman has managed to find beauty in this unlikely subject. With the careful study of their forms, through Brookman’s lens, it is possible to find tragic grace.
While art is often used to capture environmental destruction and incredible suffering, Brookman’s photos and sculptures evoke the viewer’s conflicted relation to plastic bags.
Julie Brookman‘s Plastic and Glass Series:
“My work uses photography and glass to explore the dichotomous nature of plastic bags: their beauty and imperfection, the ease in which they are acquired and the difficulty in which they are discarded. While living in Southeast Asia, my anticipation of an untouched and unchanging paradise was interrupted by a disturbing amount of trash. Locals had dumped refuse into the harbor for generations, but what was once organic matter is now plastic. It struck me how introducing plastic, a seemingly simple and innocuous artifact, into a community can forge such a lasting impact on the culture and landscape. Returning to California I couldn’t help but notice the similarity between Borneo and my own home. While the problem is less conspicuous, it is no less severe.
Even with San Francisco’s ban on plastic supermarket bags, they are omnipresent. Unconsciously, we interact with it daily to the detriment of our environment. I am often offered one at every point of consumption. And where I am offered one, I am often offered two. My mind envisions emerging rows, heaps and mounds of wrinkled, flailing receptacles, floating and flowing all around. Yet there is an almost organic beauty in its form and construction. This spawned my examination of this feeling, creating imagery from waste and plastic bags, while imagining a beautiful and ironic offspring born from this environmental crisis.”
Plastic Pollution, Coastal Care
