Using found materials that litter ocean waters, Washed Ashore aims to educate Seaside Neighborhood School students about the global marine debris crisis. Photos courtesy The Washed Ashore Project
Art to the rescue
Seaside Neighborhood School has been awarded a $30,000 grant from the John and Carolyn Peterson Charitable Foundation. The funds will be used to host the Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea project.
Washed Ashore is a non-profit community art project founded by artist and educator, Angela Haseltine Pozzi in 2010. The project is based in Bandon, Oregon, where Pozzi first recognized the amount of plastic washing up on the beaches she loved and decided to act. Since 2010, Washed Ashore has processed tons of plastic pollution from Pacific beaches to create monumental art that is awakening the hearts and minds of viewers to the global marine debris crisis.
The Washed Ashore team is headed to Seaside Neighborhood School this fall to hold training workshops and plan an art exhibit designed to help inform and educate the community on the harm plastics in our waters pose. The Plastics Pollution program is designed to help people understand marine debris (specifically plastics), where it comes from, how it happens, how it travels, and the environmental and ecological impact.
In addition to educational workshops, Pozzi has created awareness of plastic pollution by creating striking art pieces and exhibiting them on public display. Currently, she has exhibits in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans, and the Shedd Aquarium of Chicago, among others.
“We create sculptures to teach people about the problem,” Pozzi says. “Until we run out of plastic on the beach, we will keep doing our work.”
Seaside School and the Ohana Institute in Rosemary Beach, in collaboration with Seaside Community Development Corp. (SCDC) and the Seaside Academic Village will partner to host the Washed Ashore training program and showcase a touring an educational marine art exhibit.
“We are excited to have this opportunity for our school and community to work together to host this program. We hope to build awareness around taking care of our precious gulf waters,” says Seaside Neighborhood School principal Kim Mixson.
The program is underway and will continue through the spring of 2019.