The dying oceans cause widespread concern and anxiety. But what can we actually do? How to avoid plastic waste, and help maritime life survive? How to do this as part of our everyday lives? Saving the oceans requires a collaborative effort, a change of (consumption) culture.
DAILY SEA by Kaethe Wenzel starts from here. It is a three-step project with:
1.) 10-15 interviews with specialists who deal with the pollution of the oceans, resulting in
2.) 10-20 easy tips on how to avoid plastic waste and help preserve maritime life as part of your daily routine;
3.) Publishing: The tips will be published in the streets as billboard ads – and the artist will engage in interviews with passersby in front of the billboards.
The tips appear digitally as a short video on social networks. They will consist of easily applicable recommendations/tricks on waste reduction, images with street-sign-like pictograms depicting the connectedness of humans, animals, and the oceans, plus the link to the interviews.
The 3 keys to the entire project are applicability, striking images, and thorough research.
The pictograms will be apparently easily recognizable but actually complex depictions of human/animal/plant combinations, evoking science fiction, folk motives, and fantasies.
Interview partners will be specialists for ocean clean- up, zero-waste practitioners, maritime biologists etc. The interviews will be made available on the internet.
I have worked successfully with anti-hegemonial pictograms as open-source stickers I the past, http://www.kaethewenzel.de/html/piktos.htm
KAETHE WENZEL
Her work covers the field of surveying techniques to Science Fiction. She collects utopian ideas and alternative world concepts, based on which she develops machines and service interventions. Since 2009 she has been using interview-based drawing to map geographical and socio-cultural borders.
Gangwon International Biennale 2018, New York Center for Book Arts 2018; Museum Weserburg Bremen, Germany, 2017; Art Market Budapest 2016; LENTOS Art Museum Linz, Austria, 2016. Commissions f.ex . for the German Museum of Technology Berlin, Weserrenaissance-Museum Lemgo, City Museum Oldenburg, International Jacobs University Bremen.
Fulbright Exchange Scholar and Guest Professor at SVA in New York City, NRW grant art-science-economy, grants from artist ‘s village Schoeppingen, Heinrich-Boell-Foundation, DAAD, DA Kunsthaus Kloster Gravenhorst et.al.