Description
Concerned with the effects of marine plastic debris, Barker’s photographic work has reached worldwide audiences through international exhibitions, educational outreach, media reports and other means. Her aim is to expand public awareness of the environmental crisis by using aesthetically attractive visuals to communicate evolving scientific research.
This publication is introduced by Professor Richard Thompson OBE, a renowned marine scientist and Director of the University of Plymouth’s Marine Institute. His work has contributed to legislation on microbeads in cosmetics and other forms of plastic pollution.
Other texts include a foreword by Mandy Barker and an essay, Picturing Plastic Oceans, by Liz Wells, Professor in Photographic Culture at University of Plymouth. Barker also provides insight into the making of her images through an extensive survey of her personal process sketchbooks.
Her first photobook, Beyond Drifting: Imperfectly Known Animals was recognised by Smithsonian Magazine as one of the Top 10 of 2017, and received widespread attention for its subject matter and design.
Editing and design by Tiffany Jones
The Author
Based in England, UK, Mandy Barker is an international award winning photographer whose work involving marine plastic debris has received global recognition. Her series Beyond Drifting: Imperfectly Known Animals was shortlisted for the 2017 Prix Pictet, the global award in photography and sustainability, and the publication nominated for the 2018 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize.
Barker’s work has been published widely including in TIME, National Geographic, Wired, The Financial Times, The Guardian, VICE, Smithsonian, and in numerous photographic publications. She has exhibited worldwide including at The Victoria & Albert Museum, The Photographers Gallery and Somerset House in London, United Nations Headquarters and The Aperture Foundation in New York, and The Science and Technology Park in Hong Kong. She was awarded the LensCulture Earth Award in 2015 and The Royal Photographic Society’s Environmental Bursary in 2012 which enabled her to join scientists for a research expedition in the tsunami debris field in the Pacific Ocean. In 2018 she received the National Geographic Society Grant for Research and Exploration.
www.mandy-barker.com
Reviews + Press
“Dedicating her work to raise awareness and activism about the global crisis of ocean debris, Barker combines engaging and shocking photographs, sketches, and scientific research to produce some of the most urgently consequential contemporary art of this century.” – Photoeye, June 2019
“What an outstanding and timely project this is, creating beautiful but unsettling constructed simulacrums of animation out of strictly inanimate oceanic plastic pollution. A truly handsome book.” – Mike Chisholm
“She indulges in evil poetic exaggerations – blue plastic gloves simulating a coral reef or toothbrushes skittering about like shoals of fish… Barker makes the garbage glow and dazzles us with its banal fatality.” – European Photography magazine, Issue 106
Cover + Feature, Creative Review magazine, Sustainability Issue August/September 2020 (Issue 4, Vol 40)
Review in European Photography Magazine, The Environmental Issue Number 106, ‘Planet Earth: A Matter of Life and Death’
Od Review by Doug Fogelson
Interview with Rife Magazine
Cover + Feature in The RPS Journal, Volume 159/April 2019, “Ocean Colour Scene”
Selected pre-release
National Geographic Kids Magazine, ‘The BIG Picture’, ‘PENALTY-The World’, September 2018
National Geographic Magazine, June 2018 (p72-79)
Lufthansa in-flight magazine, front cover, June 2018
FOAM Magazine 50th Issue, May 2018 (p133-146)
The British Journal of Photography, ‘Breaking Point’, May 2018
The UNESCO Courier – The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation Magazine, May 2018
The New Scientist, front cover & Aperture feature, May 2018
Financial Times Magazine, ‘The Problem with Plastic’ by Clive Cookson, 27/28 January 2018
Special Notes
* Selected 10 Photobooks of the Year, 2019 by The Royal Photographic Society RPS Journal
* Selected for Athens Photo Festival 2019 Photobook Exhibition at Benaki Museum 13 June – 28 July 2019
* Bestseller at Photobookstore April/May 2019
* Bestseller at Photo-eye, June/July 2019
Selected Exhibitions in 2020
Athens Photo Festival 2020, Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece (17 September – 15 November) Main Exhibiton
‘Anthropocene – Save Our Planet’ Busan International Photo Festival, Gecheong Shipyard, Busan, Korea (16 September – 18 October)
Art Science Museum, ‘Planet or Plastic’ Marina Bay Sands, Singapore (12 September – 28 March 2021)
Fotobokfestival Oslo 2020, Oslo, Norway – presentations of Beyond Drifting, Altered Ocean & film (10-20 September)
Winter Garden Photograph Project exhibition, Houston Center of Photography, USA (10 September – 10 January 2021)
‘Planet or Plastic’, Museon, The Hague, Netherlands (1 June – 31 January 2021)
‘Les Femmes S’Exposent Festival’ Houlgate, France, (7 August – 25 September)
‘Our Plastic Ocean’ virtual exhibition Brighton Museum, Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton, England (25 July – October)
‘Beyond Drifting’, Castel Stenico & the Adamello Brenta National Park, Italy (16 July – 1 November) Solo exhibition
‘Not In My Planet’ Castel Beseno, Trento, Italy (4 July – 1 November) – Solo exhibition
‘Our Plastic Ocean’ 20:21 Visual Arts, Lincolnshire, England (31 July – 25 October) – Solo exhibition / also view Online Virtual Tour
‘50 Artists 50 Photographers’, Fotografiska Open Air Exhibition, , Stockholm, Sweden (27 April – 10th May)
‘Planet or Plastic’ National Geographic travelling exhibition – Melbourne Zoo, Melbourne, Australia (23 November – 1 March)
‘Our Plastic Ocean’ Waterside, Sale, Manchester, England (10 January – 07 March) – Solo exhibition
‘Contaminazioni’ Regione Lombardia, Milan, Italy (February – June) – Solo exhibition
‘Herbarios imaginados – Between Science and Art’ Centro de Arte Complutense, Madrid, Spain (16 January – 31 March)
Exhibitions in 2019
(Solo)
The Royal Photographic Society RPS House – opening solo exhibition at the new gallery, Bristol UK (5th April – 23 June)
In conversation with Professor Richard Thompson OBE, Friday 6th April, The RPS House, Bristol
Complesso monumentale Santa Maria della Vita, Bologna, Italy (12 April – 22 September)
Fotografiska Stockholm opening on World Oceans Day (8 June – 25 August)
Impressions Gallery of Photography, Bradford, UK (27 June – 21 September) opening & talk Saturday 13th July, 3-5pm
(Group)
National Geographic Festival of Sciences, Rome, Italy – Invention – (8 – 14 April) Festival talk Thursday 11 April
Ballarat International Foto Biennale, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia (23 August – 20 October)
Porto Biennale 2019, The Portuguese Centre of Photography, Porto, Portugal (from 15 May)
‘Football is Art’ National Football Museum, Manchester UK(4 April – 27 October)
‘Civilisation: The Way We Live Now’ UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China (9 March – 19 May)
XXII Triennale di Milano, ‘Broken Nature: Design Takes On Human Survival’, Milano, Italy (1 March – 1 September)
Museu Vida Rural, Carulla Foundation, Espluga de Francoli, Catalonia, Spain (16 February – 20 October)
‘Peer to Peer’, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool UK (17 October – 22 December)
Altered Ocean is held in the following collections:
The British Library (UK)
Bodleian Libraries University of Oxford (UK)
The National Art Library at the V&A (London, UK)
Cambridge University Library (UK)
École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie (Arles, FR)
ETH-Bibliothek (Zurich, CH)
Grace Doherty Library, Centre College (Danville, KY)
Getty Research Institute (Los Angeles, CA)
Hellenic Centre for Photography (Athens, GR)
Hirsch Library, Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, GA)
John M Flaxman Library, School of The Art Institute of Chicago (USA)
Maryland Institute College of Art, Decker Library (Baltimore, MD)
Saxon State Library, Dresden State and University Library (DE)
National Library of Scotland (UK)
National Library of Wales (UK)
Rhode Island School of Design Library (USA)
Stirling Library (AUS)
Trinity College Dublin Library (IE)
Warren Wilson College Library (Swannanoa, NC)
University of Basel Library (CH)
University of Miami Richter Library (USA)
Zurich University of the Arts, Media and Information Center (CH)
