Georgina Maxwell, contemporary, performance, installations

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...

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

It was a very warm night...

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

...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!

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...

The May Queen ferry

The Black Swan

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...