Georgina Maxwell, contemporary, performance, installations

Georgina Maxwell

Performance and Installation:

Womb of Gaia: moment by moment, breath by breath

Womb of Gaia: Moment by moment, breath by breath

Reflecting on the sacred nature of water...

gathering a myriad of plastic objects strewn across the sand...

Feeling the ocean's pain...

...each tide she spits out more plastics to a world that chooses to be blind...

My true all-giving, ancient mother...

no longer able to sustain the world's plastic addiction... my heart aches

Feeling a deep sense of compassion and interrelatedness...

our innocent, sentient relatives of the oceans, suffering the fate of these weapons of mass-extinction...

We originated from the sacred oceans...

We owe our lives to her...

We still fail to consider her needs...

how easily we forget what truly matters...

...I give gratitude and bathe in her fragile beauty...

...continuing to gather the hundreds of objects, honouring her powerful nature

wondering why I feel so deeply and many don't see it as I do...

...this is my puropse for living

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Passers by look, then turn away...

Old plastic scrubbing brush where the ocean has worn away the bristles...

... gathering plastics from the shoreline of Gwithian during my meditation walk culminated in an installation. 750 toxic objects in seawater were contained in 140 silver topped glass jars.

mottled, broken CD contained in Gwithian's seawater...

...organic-looking mass of plastic...

Malaria medicine bottle and single fishing line contained in Gwithian seawater

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Cabinet of jars from installation

Womb of Gaia: Moment by Moment, Breath

Womb of Gaia: moment by moment, breath by breath

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Art Activist: Cries from the Toxic Oceans

Cries from the Toxic Oceans

...we had to move fast

Great friends I met, giving their time and helping out...

... up all night preparing the flour and water paste...waiting for the right time to pounce

Having to work fast... but need footage too...

...a black mercedes kept circling the area... I was concerned for my co-workers that we might get arrested...

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...making an impact...nearly there...

It was a very warm night...

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the flour and water adhesive is sticking to the walls like concrete...

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...racing...adrenaline rushing through my veins

...done by 4.30am...now off to buy my friends a few drinks in a late night pub down the road.

The next morning.. woke up late...damn! jumped on the bus to find that the staff of BPF had been doing their utmost to deface the texts...

...the morning after before the Chemical Policy conference ... they were furious

like a gaping wound surrounding the British Plastics Federation HQ. London

Massive reaction from the BPF staff... they weren't happy at all!

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The BPF CEO traced me... sending a false letter posing as an environmental company who was interested in the event...

... I asked for their website for proof..no reply!

...then an email from the CEO of BPF wanting details and information and a meeting...

I felt this could be dangerous...

...I needed back up of non-bias scientists etc. but non were available!

Shown on the wall of MA show with the Womb of Gaia next door...

Site-specific: Helix Hybrid

Helix Hybrid 2007

Marine plastics ... part of the interim show at Falmouth University during my MA

As we poison the oceans life force...

invisible, ubiquitous, toxic particles also run through our veins...

Is our DNA mutating in to unfathomable distortions?

There is growing proof that we are constantly ingesting toxins...

...from plastic food packaging around porous food products and spring water bottles etc

My deep concern is for the welfare of millions of innocent marine wildlife and seabirds...

..they have no choice in the decisions we make..

One of the staff taking an interest...and images... it became a huge banner for the MA shows and featured in the prospectus

...they are suffering agonising fatalities ...

...due to our thoughtless, over-indulgent, selfish habits

Andy Warhol once said...

''Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic...

...I want to be plastic''

Art-activist exhibition:

King Harry Ferry River Fal

Plastic Planet Blues: The legacy we dare to leave behind

... a cry for help from the womb of the earth

Exhibition held on the King Harry Ferry Bridge crossing the Carrick Roads reach of the estuary of the River Fal. It connects St. Mawes and the Roseland with Feock, Truro and Falmouth. It is an iconic part of Cornwall's history established in 1888.

Plastic malaria tablets bottle sourced on Gwithian beach in the summer of 2000

Text based artworks amongst pieces made from marine plastics. Pointing to 'how does this make you feel?'

'The paradigm of our culture shapes our thinking and behaviour. The cultural conditioning of today lacks any cosmic or transpersonal dimension...

...and it's underlying principles of manic production and consumption, maximum energy flow, waste and greed threaten the whole ecosystem in which we live' Suzi Gablik in The Re-enchantment of Art'

Joseph Beuys believed that if guilt involves a death wish, then emathy restores the wish for life...

...It involves the projection of one's own life into the suffering of a dead victim, in recognition, no matter how overdue, of a common mutual bond and interrelatedness...

I feel, as Beuys did, that the victimizers must put themselves in the place of the victim, suffer what the victim suffered and die as the victim died, not literally, but internally...

Do we deny ourselves and innocent species a future or do we accept renewed responsibility and compassion?

We have a choice...

Collaboration:

Fishing for Litter initiative Newlyn

Fishing for Litter collaboration

Nets being sent for recycling

Exhibition. Awareness about Fishing for Litter initiative at Newlyn Fish Festival. 2009

Interviewed by Radio Cornwall about plastic pollution

Collection of plastic bottles

Collages on the wall made by children depicting fish in the ocean. 2010

Text-based exhibition: on board St. Mawes Ferries

Art-activist texts...

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The May Queen ferry

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The Black Swan

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Project:

on board the Elisabeth Veronique

Arriving at Newlyn Harbour at 4am... in search of Elisabeth Veronique and her Captain

On board Elisabeth Veronique, a trawler boat. t

Kevin who had been fishing all his life

This was a collaboration... I had no idea what I was going to find...or do...

...the sea was rough...it was October 2009

Wrecks, our location and direction etc. shown on maps

...the sound of porpoise beneath the boat...

...and the excitement of the gulls...

I feared for the marine life in my quiet way

... started filming the haul on the top deck until I saw the suffering....the gasping for breath of so many hundreds of fish

...ran down to where they lay and began throwing the dogfish back over board hoping that I had enough time to save them all from a miserable fate...

As pieces of plastic started to rise from the ocean floor in bulging netsI I began recording the hauls and plots... the manifestation of a coherent art project

The fishermen, Kevin and his son, continued in the rough, angry seas

Haul after haul I documented the plastics that arrived in the nets... their longitude, latitude, depth, haul and plot

...began feeling very sea sick and could no longer keep down any food or water

...the strong smell of diesel and fish was causing continous nausea

I lay down until the next haul came up... needing to record the position ...knowing this would be the last time I would set foot on a trawler again.

While I was lying down I took this photo

The first haul...

Kevin, the captain decided to dock at Plymouth as he thought I had become to ill due to my delirium and green complexion... and a cause for concern.

Arriving at the port was such a joy

Plastic artifacts from N. Atlantic seabed

Ocean fragment found on board the Elisabeth Veronique but not recorded

Article: rubber tube
source: North Atlantic Ocean
shot: latitute -50 degrees 07.3315N longitude -004 degrees 37.9200W
haul: Latitude 50 degrees 06.8121N Longitude 004 degrees 25.0726
distance: 8 metres
depth: 65 metres
date: 30th October 2009

article; rubber base of possible wellington boot
sourced on N. Atlantic Ocean bed
haul; latitude 50 degrees 09 567N longitude 004 degrees 29.831W
distance 7 metres
depth 63 metres
date 28th October 2009

Shot - latitude: 50 degrees 07.4020N longitude:004 degrees18.1513W

Haul - latitude: 50 degrees07.0234N
longitude: 004 degrees 32
.777W
Distance - 10 metres
Depth - 66 metres
Date - 29th October 2009

article: blue plastic cup
sourced on the N. Atlantic seabed
haul: latitude 50 degrees 09.567N longitude 004 degrees 29.831W
distance 7 metres
depth 63 metres
date 28th October 2009

This reads... 'To all fellow smokers. Please stop putting cigarettes out on the deck! There are 2 bins and the big blue wobbly thing that fish live in for that purpose. It is lazy and shows complete disregard for your messmates who have to come out here and clean up. It is up to all users to ensure this stops. If you see someone else dropping butts on the deck then have some balls to tell them to pick it up!'

article: Les moulineaux CEDEX (courier d'enterprise a distribution exceptionnelle) 5kg fruit sack
sourced N. Atlantic
shot: latitude 50 degrees 07.3315N longitude 004 degrees 37.9200W
haul: latitude 50 degrees 06.8121N longitude 004 degrees 25.0726
distance 8 metres
depth 65 metres
date 30th October 2009

article: fisherman's glove
sourced: N. Atlantic Ocean
haul: latitude 50 degrees 09.567N longitude 004 degrees 29.831W distance 7 metres. depth 63 metres. date 28th October 2009

Site-specific, temporary art event:

Requiescat in Pace

Requiescat In Pace

On hearing the news I made my way down to Poldhu... I was hit by a sickly sweet smell of the scented Vanish gunk... it clung to the back of my throat for days, for two weeks I suffered from severe headaches. I wondered what the marine inhabitants were having to endure.

It was estimated that 4,500 neon bottles of Vanish, out of the 18,720 that went missing, washed up on Poldhu Cove on the Lizard on Sunday 5th January 2016...

... a container that had gone overboard from the ship 'The MV Blue Ocean' near Lands End in May 2015... Many other nearby coves including Gunwalloe, Polurrian, Church Cove and Marazion have also been badly effected. A coast guard spotter plane monitored the devestation from above, where they were able to salvage another 1000 bottles.

Requiescat In Pace (RIP) then morphed in to a spiral...the oldest, most ancient symbol of water... how pure the oceans must have been back then...

What is contained in these pink neon bottles is toxic... through research I discovered the effects...irritation of the gastrointestinal tract with nausea, vomiting, haematemesis and foaming at the mouth, obstructing respiratory tract and can result in pulmonary aspiration, painful gastric distension, blistering of the mucosae and oropharyngeal burns are common. Sinus tachycardia, lethargy, confusion, coma, convulsions, stridor, sub-epiglottic narrowing, apnea, cyanosis and cardio-respiratory arrest. Eye exposure, unless treated, will cause blindness to marine life (and humans)

Hydrogen peroxide, a bleaching agent, plus TAED (tetraylethylenediamineacet) the activator... Vanish contains suphuric acid (H2SO4) which burns internal organs if ingested but also breathing it in. This may be a damming reort that Reckitt Benckiser won't like if this became more widespread knowledge

Thanks go to friends, Penny and Sam for their support and photography

Whenever I return to Poldhu, I still find pink neon micro-plastics along the shorelines...

Art- activist:

Trash in our Oceans

Trash in our Oceans. 2007

Subtle art-activist piece...

A mile long work that stretched from the Lido in Penzance to Newlyn Gallery... so that I could feel a part of the exhibition even though an outsider (half way through my MA)

... where all the bigwigs and visitors from the Arts were to walk along the promenade to reach Newlyn.

One hundred texts were stretched for one mile along the promenade..

I also advertised my contemporary exhibition of marine plastics held at Chapel Street Arts Club

The laminated (not a prefered choice of course) texts were going to be reused on many other projects...

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I came back a week later and they had been cut off by possibly the council, fishermen or just someone who found the texts offensive...

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Participatory Performance:

Uncapped

Uncapped

As a witness to this ecological catastrophe I beagn researching ... I came across a not for profit company called 'Matter of Trust' who had hundreds of volunteers using simple but effective ways of mopping up the oil.
Clean human hair and animal fur were being stuffed in to nylon stockings to make booms....much more effective than BP's lame attempts with synthetic booms. The natural hair / fur can be used up to a hundred times and when spent, they are given to certain worms that eat the oily hair and produce compost!

The performance encouraged my audience to become less of a mere spectator to the destructive nature of BP. I was asking for a lock of hair that would contribute towards making another boom....to show our commitment in tipping the balance as a community. Over the last two weeks I had collected hair from all the supportive hairdressers in Falmouth to make booms.

Locks of hair...

hair donors

Names and weights of hair locks generously donated and added to the stocking

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Shown later at Falmouth Art Gallery during the Wreck and Ruin exhibition

Expedition:

Svalbard. The Arctic

I was invited on an expedition... I chose to be the land-based artist ( on the search for marine plastics) staying in Longyearbyen, the world's northernmost town.

I had brought a book with me about the myths of the earth by Dr Martin Shaw, which allowed me to feel the elements speak their truth...

I was walking for eight hours a day in search of plastics... it was a pleasure to witness such enduring, ancient landscapes.

The sun beating down delightfully warming my bones... also thoughts of the snow-topped mountains continuing to thaw... a small avalanche that made a deep thundering noise like some ancient language of doom...

each day I walk along this road to get to the harbour... passing the hardy, friendly-enough Svalbard reindeer

The rock formations and crevises were shapes I was unaccustomed to and caught my eye out of curiosity I needed to capture their essence... a sense of nakedness

Visiting the museum in Svalbard... this was a fragment of the airship fabric used for some of the first men to embark on an epic expedition...the mark-making also in the rocks from their much-more ancient history created a sense of awe that struck the depths of my heart and soul...

The clean fresh air, 24 hours of sunlight, was exraordinarily heavenly allowing a wanderlust need to drink in these visions of such magnitude...

I pass by the old coal mines... the reason it became collanized... imagining the cold, hard, dark conditions these men must have had to endure

We spotted a pod of Beluga whales ...too quick to catch by camera apart from five fuzzy white blobs... My awareness took me to a place where the glorious spectacle has been etched in my mind forever

I start to bear witness of a mythical creature... Nordenskiold glacier... what an ethereal spectacle to behold...

Such expression in those charcoal grey clouds that surrounds the Arctic with immortal grace

Nordenskiold glacier is located between Dickson Land and Bunsow Land...

We are reaching our destination... we celebrate with a toast to this nature- made monumental beauty...my eyes fill with tears...such grandiosity, there's no ego ...that's what makes it so spiritually emmense and humbling

This epic glacier flows roughly southwestwards and is 25km (16 mi) long and 11km (6.8 mi) wide

iceburgs float by as they break from the glacier forever

Mark making by the harsh yet sensitive elements...

... I took a last look along the coastline for plastics and came upon the most poignant wretched sight. After much research I found that it was a polar bear scat enveloped in plastic... symbolic of what these innocent victims have to suffer through a plastic-addicted human race.

It has a beak from the Albatross family...

an ancient piece of Nordenskiold glacier ice that I asked for as the captain gave to us when holding our glasses up to this glorious beast. Still frozen after two days in my cabin

Reminiscent of the teeth of dolphins...

I counted twenty two people walk past this piece of plastic...

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Art-activism:

Cries from the Sacred Oceans

Cries from the Sacred Oceans

...along the vast stretch of blue boarding opposite the Atlantic Ocean...

...using more than 100 A3 red texts... warning signs of danger ahead...

...questioning my audiences emotions about plastic pollution... as I see people avert their gaze... and seem to feel no responsibility...

These texts contain bite size facts ... research in to scientific papers I trawled through ten years ago...

... the world didn't listen to me then...

There is a finite amount of water on this planet that is becoming more and more toxic...

...the thing is...it's being recycled in to the water we drink and the food we eat...

the sea-blue boards were a perfect canvas... they had been mentioned in a contemporary poem a few weeks before...

These texts don't offer the beautiful...

...or consumable...

...but the grim reality...

...of a dying ocean...

equiped with this knowledge...

...we can choose to be part of the problem...

...or part of the solution

Art-activist performance:

All dressed up and somewhere to go