Midway Albatross Sculpture

Look at the mess I made! What you are looking at is the sculpture I made for the Midway cause, I created a wire armature, covered it in kitchen paper towels then I used this as a base for claying.

I invited students to pick away at the clay albatross, revealing these endearing colourful plastics with which we are all too familiar, in the hopes to do a little story telling myself!

I hope this little project expresses in a small way how much I appreciate the giant effort that Chris Jordan and his team are putting into highlighting our human meddling in the environment on Midway Atoll.

Midway Prints

At Kingston University I was introduced to etching and monoprinting. Using the tragedy of Midway Atoll as inspiration I used these printing techniques to create a series of albatross inspired images. I etched an infant albatross begging for food from its parent, oblivious to the fatal consequences.

Midway Journey

A team of activists, led by Chris Jordan, have been documenting the environmental tragedy that is unfolding on Midway Atoll. I have been so deeply touched by their work that I wanted to share this with others.

These islands are located in the North Pacific Ocean, and although they are remote, the remains of our consumer lifestyles wash up daily onto the shores. Toxic swirls of plastic flotsam from all over the world find a permanent home on these small secluded islands, at the expense of the inhabitants.

Every year thousands of dead infant and adult pacific albatross litter the island, among them are thousands more albatrosses slowly choking and starving. The birds decomposed bodies reveal the colourful culprits: milk tops, combs, pens, cigarette lighters etc. a signature of our insatiable consumerism, which lie nestled amongst the fragile bones and gentle feathers of these curious creatures.

Through skilled photography and storytelling they have produced a film, Midway: Message From the Gyre, [not yet released] that follows the lives of the great pacific albatross and their struggle against the never ending tide of plastic.

The way these gentle birds churn this plastic poison through their bodies with these deadly consequences is heartbreaking so I amassed a fair amount of research and began thinking about how to relay their story to my fellow students at Kingston University.