NOVEL ENTITIES
I made my first beach-plastic work over 20 years ago on a beach in Sardinia. It was there where I realized the seriousness of the ongoing global pollution of our oceans and beaches and decided no longer to remain passive. I started with cleaning beaches from plastic debris on a regular base, as a hobby, as a necessity.
For me it became a way of being able to deal with the sentiments of grieve because of this global problem and turn these into something more manageable. I can’t solve the problem, but I can try to be part of the solution. It has given me an extra goal on my excursions, a good thing to combine with experiencing nature and discovering new places. It is sometimes hard work, time consuming, but enormously satisfying.
Some part of the plastic junk I find gets a new purpose and ends up in my studio. I have had different focuses on materials I have found, but since a few years I take care of the ropes, cords and fishing nets I find. They can be found all along the west coast of Sweden.
Rope is an interesting artist's material and comes in all possible dimensions, lengths and colors, although mostly in green and orange. Sometimes old, faded and worn, sometimes new and fresh.
After sorting and cleaning (including 40°C machine wash) a process of transformation starts in the studio, from the dirtiest trash into something worth keeping.
My rope works point out the problems of plastic pollution and environmental destruction by it’s material. But they also tell something else. Something about displacement and travelling, about longing away. About time and chance. I see the connection to some ethnographic works, like abstract handicraft from the Amazon or the Congo, something you might find in an ethnographic museum, soft and tactile like a textile.
I also think about what future societies would produce after a possible civilizational collapse. We know how long plastic can survive before it falls apart, so it will be there even long after we stopped producing new.
DEBRIS WARRIOR - 2021-22 - photo, acrylics, rope - 56 x 45 cm
Bohus Blues - 2021 - beach findings, aluminium - approx. 200 x 325 cm
Secret Mirror Box - 2022 - seashells, ceramics, plastic debris, wood, mirror mosaic, glass - 10 x 19 x 13 cm
Rope Composition Nr 6 - 2022 - rope on canvas - 53 x 41 cm
© Tom Bogaard 2025
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