Prayers for the Sea, Artscape

The River of Recyclables at Baltimore’s Artscape festival was part of an exhibition entitled, Harbor High Port (of Call) and other Phenomenades curated by Laure Drogoul. The show focused on issues regarding the preservation and protection our water.

The River of Recycling element of the installation was comprised of recyclable bottles and cans and located adjacent to Penn Station in Baltimore. These recyclables were collected from city trash bins at the event and an additional 10 recycling bins distributed by Baltimore Trash Talk/Full Circuit Studio (BTT/FCS).

Artscape is a street festival where alcoholic beverages in disposable containers are permitted. That means a lot of foot traffic and a lot of recyclables, most of which end up in the trash. It also means festival-goers might end up in The River, which could be problematic. The installation needed an eye-level element to do two things: avert pedestrian collisions with the ground-level installation and call attention to the installation’s purpose.

I created 100 plastic bag flags influenced by Tibetan Prayer Flags to hang above the river. The flags were comprised of fused plastic bags. Each had images of sea creatures incised into or fused to the surface of them.

Baltimore Trash Talk posters cycled with other imagery on the large light display on Charles St. Two of the posters are shown to the left.

Concepts, art, design and installation by Baltimore Trash Talk/Full Circuit Studio (FCS).