BEAUTIFUL PICTURES CREATED BY THE OCEANS TRASH BY MICHELLE DONEFER

Preface: My name is Michelle Donefer. This work is titled “Beautiful pictures created by the ocean’s trash”. I will be using a CC BY license for this project.

Alejandro Duran is the creator of the Washed Up: Transforming A Trashed Landscape photo series.The work of Alejandro Duran captures the way he take trash from all along the beaches of cancun, a tourist destination known for it luxury hotels and incredible beaches, and turns them into works of art that mimic all different types of natural forms and has been praised for his ability to get different audiences to think about that even in a place known for its incredible beaches, it does not go without being polluted by pounds and pounds of trash.

This is Derrame (Spill), 2010. Hundreds of different colored bottle caps collected from Sian Ka’an that are positioned to look like the outline of North and South America. One of the many photos that are showcased in the Washed Up: Transforming A Trashed Landscape series created by Alejandro Duran

This portfolio focuses on how Alejandro Duran uses the pounds and pounds of trash that he himself collects from the ocean and the beaches of Mexico and creates beautiful works of art. In order to raise awareness around how trillions of pounds of trash are dumped into the world’s oceans each year, the Washed Up: Transforming A Trashed Landscape is centered around the themes of ocean conservation and bringing awareness to the environmental effects it is having on the beaches of Mexico.

This is Brotes (Shoots), 2014. A collection of different colored toothbrushes collected from Sian Ka’an planted in the ground next to plants from the point of view of a person who is lying down. One of the many photos that are showcased in the Washed Up: Transforming A Trashed Landscape series created by Alejandro Duran

Alejandro Duran, the creator of Washed Up: Transforming A Trashed Landscape, first visited the federally protected reserve Sian Ka’an in Mexico’s (the country where he was born) Caribbean coast in 2010 he was horrified to see such a beautiful and diverse beach completely covered in trash. Alejandro gathered a couple pieces of blue plastic trash and set them up on the shore line with the blue sky and the blue water and took a picture of it. Something inside of him said this was something he wanted to keep doing to raise awareness of how much trash ends up on the world’s beaches each year. He gathered different colored pieces of trash and from there it led him to create the Washed Up: Transforming A Trashed Landscape photo series. SInce then, Alejandro has created images such as these but getting different communities involved and has even moved on creating what he describes as living artworks, taking the trash used in various photographs he has taken and making a continuation of it in different everyday environments.

This is Riachuelo (Brook), 2017. DIfferent shades of blue shoes that were collected from Sian Ka’an arranged in a way to look like a river flowing through the palm trees and the plants. One of the many photos that are showcased in the Washed Up: Transforming A Trashed Landscape series created by Alejandro Duran

The Washed Up project and the various works of art that can be seen are critical to understanding of our society because the pollution of our oceans affect not just us who rely on it for almost everything but the different habitats that call the ocean home. The amount of people who go on the world’s beaches each day/month/year is in the trillions, and most of them don’t even realize (or care) if they leave plastic on the beaches and what kind of precautions that has on the ocean and all of its organisms that call the ocean home. The Washed Up art exhibit is showcasing how all of that plastic can be turned into beautiful works of art that portray different natural forms and how they have been changed by pollution. As well as educating people on how the plastic in the ocean is destroying the world’s ecosystems.