BREAKING POINT
      TIPPING POINT is an artistic climate change statement on the status of the world’s oceans and coral reefs, threatened by critically high temperatures and plastic pollution. I have used single-use plastics, repeated en masse, to create a looming, bleached-white skeletal reef, rife with heartbreaking symbolism.
      coral, reefs, plastic, climate change, ocean, environment, art, artist, sculpture, sarah hatton, straws, plastic straws, single-use plastic
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      BREAKING POINT

      This piece represents Great Star Coral – Montastraea cavernosa

       

      Every year, 8 million metric tons of plastics enter our ocean. Single-use plastic nanoparticles are systematically poisoning coral polyps. Waste plastic clings to coral and tears its membranes, introducing bacteria and pathogens that swiftly devastates the colony. Worse, ocean plastic waste blocks vital sunlight from reaching the weakened reefs, leaving bleached white skeletal forms where there was once an ecosystem.

       

      I have sequestered tens of thousands of single-use plastic drinking straws to make this piece.

       

      TIPPING POINT is an artistic climate change statement on the status of the world’s oceans and coral reefs, threatened by critically high temperatures and plastic pollution. I have used single-use plastics, repeated en masse, to create a looming, bleached-white skeletal reef, rife with heartbreaking symbolism.

      “Breaking point” (last straws). Plastic straws on fibreglass, 2019.

      Tags
      art, climate change, coral, plastic, sarah hatton, sculpture, star coral, straws