Great Pacific Garbage Patch People- In Process

The Garbage Project began for me out of an idea I took from Developmental Transformation Therapy (DvT). This is a type of drama therapy where you enter into play acting with a group of people, which inevitably brings up some of the issues you are dealing with. The idea is that, if we open our problems up to the ridiculousness of imagination, we will become comfortable with change and see that all of our problems are not as set in stone as we might think.

Taking that initial concept, I chose to work with something that is a real travesty our world is currently dealing with, namely the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. 

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch exists in an area of the ocean that, because of current patterns, collects and keeps an extremely high amount of plastic that won't break down. But the North Pacific Gyre doesn't only collect garbage. It also collects a huge amount of plant and sea life, and should be an incredibly vibrant ecosystem. Unfortunately, because of the plastic, large amounts of wildlife are being devastated.

When I think about issues like this, I become extremely stressed out. Having already cut buying useless plastics out of my life practice, as well as the other things I do to try to live an environmentally responsible life, like biking, living communally and eating a vegetarian diet, I get overly depressed about environmental problems like this. When I think about a problem that is this massive, I'm not quite sure what else I can do to help solve the problem.

So, taking the idea of DvT, I decided to put my imagination into action and play with an idea of what could be possible. I came up with the idea of the garbage solidifying into a land mass where a brand new type of aboriginal population was found. Although my imagination doesn't change what's actually happening, maybe with a little bit more play, humour and imagination around these issues we'll be able to come up with workable long term solutions.

For this exhibition, I am working on a faux documentary about the Garbage Patch People, photoshopped images of this "new population", making fake literature, as well as imitation artifacts from the Garbage Patch People culture. 

Although most clips for the documentary were ripped and culture-jammed from various sources, (list available upon request) my own actors and voice actors are as follows-

Alex Wintschel- voice narration

Tye Walters as David Thompson

Jodi Sharp- Miai Berzina

Garbage Patch People Photo Models-
Aaron Ball
Iris Moore