SHOAL

SHOAL is an exhibition featuring 12 photographs by artist Mandy Barker. The series reveals evidence of marine plastic debris collected during the Japanese Tsunami Debris Expedition in June 2012.

The work focuses on plastics collected and photographed from trawls and net samples at various points between Japan and Hawaii, and also from the tsunami affected shoreline in Fukushima Prefecture. Each image includes a different trawl sample, in some cases represented as tiny plankton, and captioned with the grid reference of where each sample was collected.

Each image is based on a collection of marine plastic that forms a 'shoal', arrangements of different species of fish that the plastic ultimately affects. Objects and particles have been duplicated to represent both the scale of lives lost and the amount of plastic that entered the Pacific Ocean as a result of the Tohoku earthquake and Japanese Tsunami, March 11 2011.

'Shoal' is a description given to a group of fish swimming together, a large number of people, or things. 

This project was made possible by The Royal Photographic Society and Photographic Angle Environmental Bursary Award 2012.

Photograph © Mandy Barker