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Blog: 'Plastic Ocean' by Dutch artist and photographer Thirza Schaap : 'It bothered me that just photographing the washed-up, weathered plastic finds never managed to reflect the beauty of their colours and textures...'

by GoSee ART // 8 Files //  

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GoSee loves the wonderful art project 'Plastic Ocean' from Dutch artist and photographer Thirza Schaap. All images can be ordered via her website and BILDHALLE.

'As a child I would walk over beaches and through fields and forests to collect beautiful shells, shimmering stones, feathers and funnily shaped branches. Much later, when spending more time on the beaches all over the world, I found myself doing the same thing. Only to discover, that I started filling my pockets with trash instead of treasure.

Colourful and beautiful in its own tragic way. Plastic Ocean is a project which I started to create awareness around pollution, to try and prevent (or at least reduce) the use of plastic. In making sculptures out of the objects I find, I try to evoke an emotional response  from my audience by creating a contradiction.

Initially there’s an aesthetic appeal, but after a second look: the realisation of the immense tragedy caused by plastic waste. Our beaches are covered in plastic confetti and there really is nothing to celebrate.'

Also Plastic Ocean wil be featured by Bildhalle on the art fair Unseen in Amsterdam from 17-19 September 2021 https://unseenamsterdam.com

Thirza Schaap (*1971, NL) graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 1995. Since then she has been working as a photographer and is now exploring new art forms through her Plastic Ocean project. She has been living and working both in Amsterdam and in Cape Town, South Africa since 2013.

After first posting her Plastic Ocean images on Instagram she was published by I-D VICE magazine in the summer of 2017, followed by Lidewij Edelkoorts’s Trend Tablet, L’Officiel, Elle, Vogue, Aperture and many others. Her collection was included in the Finders Keepers exhibition at the Het Nieuwe Instituut, a design museum in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

In May 2019 during design week in Salone, Italy she was acknowledged by Instagram as one of four artists who present themselves successfully through social media. In March 2018 she gave a lecture, workshop to go along with her exhibition at Fabrica Research Center in Venice, Italy. Plastic Ocean’s first solo exhibition opened June 2018 in Amsterdam at Christie’s in collaboration with Colette Olof’s “O,Wonder!”. Her first exhibition of her sculptures opened March 2019 in Maastricht in The Netherlands and later that year in Cape Town in collaboration with Greenpeace Africa.
IMAGE // PLASTIC OCEAN by Thirza Schaap
IMAGE // PLASTIC OCEAN by Thirza Schaap
IMAGE // PLASTIC OCEAN by Thirza Schaap
IMAGE // PLASTIC OCEAN by Thirza Schaap
IMAGE // PLASTIC OCEAN by Thirza Schaap
IMAGE // PLASTIC OCEAN by Thirza Schaap
IMAGE // PLASTIC OCEAN by Thirza Schaap
IMAGE // PLASTIC OCEAN by Thirza Schaap
 
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