German enviro-performance troupe partners with Volvo

Environment Updates

Keep The Oceans Clean! Initiative accompanying Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12 a resounding success

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 29 June, 2012 : - - Lorient, France -- The Skeleton Sea artist collective have been touring with the Keep the Oceans Clean! project for the last seven months. The initiative is taking place in partnership with the Volvo Ocean Race. The artists’ tour also reaches its conclusion at the race finish line in the Irish port of Galway on 7 July.
 
The Volvo Ocean Race has been accompanied from port to port by the Skeleton Sea artist collective ever since the event got underway on 29 October 2011 in Alicante. The regatta – and therefore also the artists’ tour – has stopped off in Alicante, Cape Town, Abu Dhabi, Sanya, Auckland, Itajaí, Miami, Lisbon and Lorient, and concludes in the Irish port of Galway. The impressive and informative travelling exhibition by Skeleton Sea in and outside the Keep the Oceans Clean! Dome, has attracted lots of visitors in the Volvo Ocean Race Village in each port.

This exhibition, combined with the community Beach Cleans and Environmental Art Workshops, have helped to raise awareness of the serious problems caused by the pollution in our oceans. In addition, the sculptures created in each Host Port by the Skeleton Sea artists and Workshop participants have been donated to local organisations as a legacy of the Keep the Oceans Clean! Programme.
 
After the first Beach Clean in Alicante, a sculpture was created titled “Saludos de la Mar” (Greetings from the Sea); a floral tribute made from beach rubbish, which has been on display in the new Volvo Ocean Race Museum in Alicante since its opening this month.
 
In Cape Town, the Skeleton Sea artists worked in close partnership with invited school children to create a colourful aquarium containing a creative and diverse range of plastic fish and marine creatures. This installation went on display in the Waterfront Craft Market, where the Workshops were kindly hosted, and has continued to draw much interest amongst this artistic community.
 
Following a successful beach clean on Lulu Island in Abu Dhabi, a tropical fish named “Lulu” was created by artist João Parrinha and participants in the Beach Clean. This bright, colourful sculpture measured over two metres in width and one-and-a-half metres in height, and was given a permanent home in the foyer of the National Shipping Company of Abu Dhabi, who showed a strong interest in the Project and the film. The fourth Host Port for the Volvo Ocean Race was the Chinese city of Sanya, where over 100 volunteers took part in the beach cleaning.

Local school children delighted in using the collected materials to decorate a single present each, which together, created the installation “Presents of the Sea” and became a happy gift to the Serenity Marina Sailing School. In March, the Beach Clean and Art Workshops were staged in Auckland, where João Parrinha supervised the creation of a sculpture titled "Whale Tail”. This colourful artwork with a graceful shape was given a permanent home in the city's fantastic Voyager Museum.
 
The Beach Clean in the Brazilian port of Itajaí in April attracted the largest number of volunteers. Here, over 200 helpers cleaned the surrounding beaches, gathering the material for the “Mutant Tainha Fish” sculpture that was subsequently installed in Itajaí’s market square. The Tainha, also known as the Brazilian mullet, is a fish now virtually extinct as a result of marine pollution, an example of the dramatic consequences of the indiscriminate disposal of rubbish of all kinds.

An impressive sculpture was also created following the Beach Clean and mangrove planting in Miami. The “Free Orca“ sculpture was made by Skeleton Sea artist Xandi Kreuzeder, who assembled an array of plastic mosaics created by children in the art workshops. “Free Orca” has been given a permanent home in the Biscayne Nature Centre on Key Biscayne.
 
The next stopover of the Volvo Ocean Race was hosted in Lisbon, where the local Surfrider Foundation took part in the Beach Clean, thus contributing to the success of the initiative. The outcome of this Portuguese edition of Art Workshops was “The Albatross” sculpture, which is now exhibited in the Oceanario de Lisboa.
 
“It is an absolute joy to witness the creativity and energy which children in particular bring to our workshops,” said Xandi Kreuzeder, summing up his impressions of the last eight months. “Children frequently attended the workshops on several days over the course of our tour. And more, parents tell me, that having attended the art workshops, many children now gather rubbish and throw it in the bin after every visit to the beach. For me this is the most beautiful confirmation of the value of the Keep the Oceans Clean! campaign because it shows that we really can have a lasting impact.
 
The artists’ group is currently in the French port of Lorient, where a successful Beach Clean took place on 22 June. With the help of the local school children a penultimate installation entitled “The Sea” is currently taking shape. The Keep the Oceans Clean! campaign will be making its final stop from the 3rd to the 7th of July in Galway. Here a final impressive sculpture entitled “The Medusa” will be created to mark the culmination of the eight-month tour.
 
“If nothing else, this programme has changed the way a lot of children think, which is the most important thing for me,” said Jacqui Smith, coordinator of the Keep the Oceans Clean! campaign at of the Volvo Ocean Race. “I have heard many moving stories about young children being so concerned about rubbish, after watching the film or coming along to a beach cleaning, and that is worth gold in my opinion. If we can reach out to children, they will then teach the adults.”
 
NEXT ACTIVITIES OF SKELETON SEA:
02. - 08. July – Exhibition public & art workshop @ Volvo Ocean Race, Galway (IRE)
06. - 12. July – Beach clean up & art creating @ Kitesurf World Cup St. Peter Ording (GER)
26. July / 20:30h – Opening of  Skeleton Sea exhibition @ Globetrotter Munich (GER)
27. & 28. – River clean up & art workshop @ Kultur Strand Munich  (GER)

Working exclusively with flotsam and jetsam, and any other beach trash they encounter on their travels, the artists create works for Skeleton Sea that express a strong message based around their shared cause of "keeping the oceans clean!".

www.skeletonsea.com


Source: Kommissariat

Author: Andi Spies / Skeleton

Tags: Skeleton Sea, Volvo Ocean Race, Art, Environment,

Events: Surfersvillage.