At the end of Camelle Beach is the community center of Mar de Fábula, a non-profit organization whose mission is to clean up the ocean. To this end, the association promotes the collection and removal of all solid waste deposited on the shore year-round to prevent it from returning to the sea.
The largest volume of solid waste polluting the sea and the marine ecosystem is plastic in all its shapes and sizes. As mechanical degradation increases, plastics break down into increasingly smaller pieces, making manual collection more difficult or impossible and increasing their negative impact on nature.
Mar de Fábula aims to be another cog in this global machine working to preserve the health of the oceans. In raising public awareness, we want to convey the need for each of us to take an active role in the conservation of the sea and the marine environment without further delay.
To draw public attention to these goals, the Mar de Fábula association organizes artistic and craft workshops based on the reuse of plastic materials selected from the enormous volumes stored at its facilities.
THE SEA: THE BIG STORAGE STOCK CAN TAKE EVERYTHING
Plastic materials are massively present in the beaches and dunes of A Costa da Morte. Plastic bags, containers, and bottles litter the beaches and dunes… but also glass, cans, Styrofoam, rags, tires, fishing tackle, whips, ropes, lines, flip-flops, gloves, and rubber boots, unfortunately unpaired.
The sea, the origin of life and the main source of humanity’s resources, is suffering the consequences of an old-fashioned view that it has no limits, that it is a bottomless pit, that the sea can take anything.
But that’s not the case. The pollution of the oceans due to uncontrolled dumping and the massive presence of plastic waste in their waters has long made the deterioration of the marine ecosystem a concern for major organizations worldwide.
We must abandon the individualistic mentality that says, “I’m happy in my house, in my garden, or in my vegetable garden, and I don’t care about the rest.” Our well-being increasingly depends on the actions of others.
But the sea belongs to all of us; the sea is our home, and its marine ecosystem is our garden. Preserving its natural state and protecting it from all the attacks it suffers will be the only way to achieve that state of well-being and happiness that every individual and every community yearns for.
METAMORPHOSIS
To obtain a good harvest of waste, the best time is just after the storm, when the sea, exhausted, rests its skin and breathes like a child…
Then, the great floodgates of the BIG PAÑOL, burst by a torrent of detritus and disappointment, deposit on the shore the remains of shipwrecks, glass bottles without messages, ropes of all sizes, pieces of wood that point to shapes, plastic boxes, plastic bottles, plastic lids, plastic plugs, plastic awnings, plastic pipes, plastic bags filled with sand that undulate bodies on the riverbank… also pieces of nets, fishing tackle, rubber boots, rubber gloves, floats, buoys, fenders, and always, always whips of various colors, their tips sticking out above the sand or among the dry jungle of seaweed, sometimes contaminated and other times clean, shiny, as if brand new, like daytime fireflies washed by the sea… All the plastic materials that will take hundreds of years to decompose.
The sea returns these materials to us, altered and broken by its force, and invites us, in an intimate and patient dialogue, to integrate them into our creative capacity, suggesting new forms, far from their former everyday use, outside the frenzied circuits of consumer culture.
And so fantastic creatures of all shapes and sizes emerge, with circular viscera and large, astonished eyes. And through our visual communication with these monstrous but harmless creatures, we can establish new channels of analysis and reflection on our aggressive attitude and abuse of the sea and its surroundings.
And marine litter, in its components, takes on different forms of artistic creation, each with its own language, but all of them revealing the irrationality of our relationship with the sea.
COMPOSITIONS
The permanent backdrop for marine litter is the whips, pieces of plastic rope of all colors, although green, in all its shades, is by far the most dominant. Then comes orange, also with its nuances, then light blue, then dark blue, then yellow… red is the most scarce.
All of them draw circles, delimit shapes, and fill voids.
SCULPTURES
Sometimes, the sea, while waiting for the right moment to make a new delivery, entertains itself by molding pieces of plastic, driftwood, and even iron, old iron ropes that once towed ships and today, their structure shattered into claws, struggle to catch a time that slips away…
And then we arrive, add the final touch, and take over the work.
MASKS
The faces of pollution. The ugly faces of pollution, but also astonished.
They all have a questioning, bewildered expression. They know they’re not in the right place and that there’s a lack of order and harmony in their surroundings. Everything is mixed up with everything else. They are the masks of an exhibitionist carnival where everything is displayed, sold, and consumed.
CHAOTIC CREATURES
They know that, under normal circumstances, they shouldn’t exist. It’s like rewriting the history of science, but in reverse. It’s as if the ancient theory of spontaneous generation, according to which the fermentation and putrefaction of organic waste generated life, has not yet been overcome. Thus, under the precise convulsions of the ocean, thousands of centuries away, in the depths of the sea where life teems chaotically, plastic waste (after all, it’s also carbon) gives rise to new forms of life.
HANDICRAFTS
This involves recovering, in workshops open to all, the ancient custom among seafarers of reusing a variety of waste and scraps of fishing gear, shaping model ships, toys, ornaments, etc., as a creative and educational way to spend free time.
Likewise, the aim is to develop a type of functional craftsmanship, unique in its design, such as different models of floor, table, and ceiling lamps, which could find an outlet in the home decor sector.
CONTACT
Sea of Fable Association
Rúa Portela 18 O Monte Novo 15121 Camelle
Teléfono: +34 608 609 042
E-mail: info@mardefabula.org
