Reflection

For a long time, I was not aware of plastic pollution in the ocean. However, since moving to Hawaii, I better understand the severity of the trash issues in our oceans.

I am Julia Ebert, a high school student, and through my artwork, I want to show the world how tragic the pollution in the ocean really is. The main point, and also the title of my work, is "What goes in the ocean, goes in you". Many people know the famous phrase, "You are what you eat", and I want people to realize that by throwing trash into the ocean they affect the fish, which also affects us, by eating the fish.

I decided to create my piece through a sculpture. I thought this would be more convincing and realistic than a painting. For the sculpture I used actual beach rubbish, plastic and real food. For the real food section I used wasabi and rice, fresh from the supermarket. I wanted to create a contrast between plastic and real food, I wanted to create a contrast between the fish eating plastic items because of us, and then becoming plastic in comparison with the real uncontaminated rice, ginger, and wasabi.

My inspiration for this piece came when I was surfing through the Internet, and I came upon a Pinterest picture, which illustrated plastic pollution.