So pleased to announce the very beginnings of my new international collaboration with NatGeo, StoneLion Puppet Theatre, the Municipality of Eilat, the American Embassy in Israel and the Arava Institute: An Art exhibition featuring local artists whose work engages with plastic pollution and the sea. National Geographic did a really nice video announcing the project:
Read all about the details in our official press release:
Art Exhibition launches creative campaign to stop flow of plastic into the Red Sea in Eilat, Israel with Red Sea Plastic Free
Red Sea Plastic Free is a collaborative, multi-platform, artistic and scientific intervention to significantly reduce the use of single-use plastic in the coastal town of Eilat, Israel and to better capture trash and recycling in order to stop the flow of plastic into the Red Sea. It is the visionary brainchild of National Geographic Explorer and ocean conservationist Ziggy Livnat and his creative partner Heather Nisbett-Lowenstein of StoneLion Puppet Theatre, along with a small scientific and creative global team. The absolutely unique and completely innovative multi-year public platform deploys underwater marine puppetry and filmmaking to launch a mascot campaign across social and traditional media platforms, Red Sea Plastic Free tackles the global plastic pollution problem at the local level – with charm and humor to spare! The puppets will be filmed underwater within the marine environment, interviewed in Public Service Announcements as lively and animated characters and participate in public events throughout the campaign driving public interaction.
Their characters give an urgent voice to the sea life facing imminent threat to their ecosystem, while compassionately and humorously engaging audiences to encourage new and positive changes to their use and disposal of plastic. Recognizing that the ocean plastics pollution problem is both complex and multi-national, the puppets playfully educate and advocate in multiple languages giving communities positive solutions for lasting change. They will campaign on ways the public, local companies, and municipalities can take action to end the flow of single use plastic pollution into local area waters. These charming and captivating puppet characters solicit an empathetic investment in the future of the complex Red Sea ecosystem, acknowledging its unique and precious marine role is vital to everyone in the nations sharing the shoreline around this intercontinental sea. To accomplish this important goal, the project is proud to have received funding through The National Geographic Channel, Israel, The Municipality of Eilat, and The U.S. Embassy in Israel, as well as collaboration from The Arava Institute and The Underwater Observatory Marine Park, Eilat (Coral World).
Using art to inspire behavioral change based on the latest research in social science, the campaign has deeply personal resonances for Livnat. His passion for the oceans and life-long career dedicated to marine conservancy and education began during his very first dive course twenty-seven years ago in the Red Sea. Now his multi-year, multi-lingual and international project launches with an Art Exhibition to bring awareness to the plight of the Red Sea ecosystem and the overwhelming problem of single-use plastic pollution.
To launch this campaign creatively, as both global collaboration and local artistic platform, Livnat and Nisbett-Lowenstein along with curators Doron Polak and Sarit Nachshon, with support from the National Geographic Society, the U.S. Embassy in Israel and the Municipality of Eilat, present “Red Sea Plastic Free: An Exhibition to end Plastic Pollution” with a selection of works by more than 40 of Israel’s most prominent professional artists, including a select group of local artists based in Eilat. This exhibition highlights creative and aesthetic responses to the subject of ocean habitat destruction by plastic and the need for immediate change. The exhibition will also open at the prestigious Box Gallery in Kansas City, MO and overlap with the Israeli exhibit – showing simultaneously in the United States and Israel demonstrates the global nature of the collaboration, while launching both in a shoreline community (Eilat) and far from the shores in Kansas City, acknowledges that the global problem of ocean plastic pollution is one we all must solve – together.
The works gathered from across media include painting, photography, sculpture, puppetry, printing and etching, to video installations and performance works. The exhibition offers a multitude of voices and perspectives to focus the overwhelming issues surrounding this pressing ecological issue to the level of the persona: the level of compassion, and empathy. Launching this multi-year artistic and collaborative intervention to stop plastic with an Art Exhibition is central to demonstrating new kinds of creative and artistic collaborations that can inspire. A number of pieces highlight the need to end plastic bag debris, which has become one of the most visually poignant reminders of ocean plastic pollution in contemporary media – including those of sculptor/painters Menashe Kadishman, Yigal Tumarkin, Israel Rabinowitz and installation artist Itamar Beglikter.
Artist: Aliza Olmert
The environmental artist and industrial designer Doron Gazit presents photographs of installations he has created directly on landscape as a part of his groundbreaking “Red Line Project” that instantiates the proverbial “line in the sand” using environmentally neutral but visually arresting red plastic tubing across the landscape “to whose transformation he wants to bring our attention.” Eilat environmental artist Einat Steckler uses marine trash to create monumental portraits in a photo-realistic style, inviting us to “re-view” these waste materials as the basic materials for creating visual art that transcends the boundaries painting and sculpture.
Artist: Uri De Beer
For many of the artists, including organizer Livnat himself, the unique visual characteristics of the Red Sea are a central focus of their work. Underwater photographer Noam Kortler and land photographers Mori Chen and Shmulik Tagar create much of their work in and around the Red Sea. Each interacts with the ecosystem and landscape in and around Eilat quite individually, documenting this relationship through a unique methodology and lens, resonating the personal notes of human interaction with the Sea. Kortler’s photographs constitute intimate portraits of an individual marine animal captured in plastic, bringing the animal’s individuality and personality to the surface. Videos by Mori Chen portray the overwhelming activities of humans on the shoreline, providing a poignant counterpoint to the stillness or the underwater imagery, and illustrating the enormous impact of human shoreline activities.
Artist: Evelyn Anka
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Exhibition runs from: June 8, 2019 to August 10, 2019 at the Municipal Gallery of Eilat. Information for the gallery can be found at http://www.eilat.muni.il/?CategoryID=2204&ArticleID=2690
Facebook Event can be found at https://www.facebook.com/events/367340160575366/
Included: Galley Announcement Attached (in Hebrew) in pdf format; a selection of high-resolution images from artists featured in the exhibition.
Included: Galley Announcement Attached (in Hebrew) in pdf format; a selection of high-resolution images from artists featured in the exhibition.
