Algarve artist BJ Boulter has a new project which she hopes “everyone can become involved with”.
She is busy creating a giant sculpture of a dolphin out of plastic waste materials and needs people’s discarded bottles, bin lids, chunky toys and old furniture. “The brighter the better”.
The initiative is part of a wider effort powered by Marlagos, in Lagos Marina and CIMA (the centre for marine investigation at the University of the Algarve) designed to call attention to marine pollution and the impact it has on the day-to-day life of the oceans.
BJ’s sculpture of a dolphin diving into a plastic-polluted sea will be a focal point of the event – but to make the splash she plans, BJ needs people’s help.
“I need as much plastic waste materials as possible. People can bring them to where I am creating the sculpture, and if they leave a note with their email attached, I will call and thank them”.
Schoolchildren from Lagos Naus and Silves Sul secondary schoola and private school Nobel have already become involved picking up plastic waste from the beaches – and as BJ explains, “this is something we can all do to make others aware of the possibilities we have to actually change things”.
The inspiration for her project came from the memory of a voyage by boat, almost 50 years ago, into Durban, South Africa.
“Sailing into the harbour in the morning light the water was glittering like the country’s famous diamonds, but no! … it was a sea of plastic bottles. Beautiful and shocking. The state of the oceans has inspired me through art to visualize how we also contribute – every day”, she told us.
“Listen to the Ocean” will be on show at Pier J in May. To help make it possible, from now through April the ‘drop off’ point for donated plastic waste is Quinta de Oxalá – Estrada das Fontes. Estombar, telephone: 962514148.
