Sea Sample Spectacular

Danny Webb, Elizabeth Bressington, Evelyn Simpson, Madalyn Barratt, Saskia Orr

Big Picture and Hobart City High School

In Collaboration with Paula Ruiz
Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, UTAS

Artist’s Statement

This piece was inspired by the research of our wonderful scientist Paula, who focuses specifically on the health of the East Coast reef systems and kelp forests of Australia. The main problem that these ecosystems are facing is climate change.

This artwork is a collaboration that explores how 5 different artists can interpret the work from one scientist. Our goal was to represent Paula’s research by expanding the use of mediums outside of our comfort zones and to make pieces that truly contrast one another while still being cohesive.

We chose to use 10x10cm ceramic tiles because that is what Paula uses for her research. Sample tiles are drilled into the sea floor to safely sample reefs and figure out the steps toward recovery and what may have made previous ones fail.

We wanted to show a variety of ocean ecosystems, tropical, temperate, dead, and alive to represent the vast diversity in Paula’s research. As a group, we’re exploring the ideas of improving the visibility of damaged reef ecosystems and helping those we can still save.

The urchins present in many of the tiles equate to the rapidly increasing number of invasive urchins damaging our southern reefs. We wanted to show the impact of the urchins and the algae in pushing out endemic life, and how it’s up to us to help.

As we got further on in the project, we changed direction slightly towards commenting on the tourism industry through signage and postcards. We decided to show how advertising may only show the good, healthy, and alive parts of reefs, and as a result reefs and kelp forests are silently suffering much more than we realise.

“I want people to see the message of our piece as a whole and be able to see the different art styles and ecosystems. I want them to see how tiles are used in research like Paula’s.” – Evelyn

“What I want the viewers to see is how playful the coral in the ocean is. What inspired me is seeing the bleached tiles, I imagined the colour that was once there before.” – Madalyn

“I was inspired by the immense difference between dead and alive coral. I wanted to show some of the creatures that might live in the coral and who would find it difficult to find a place to exist when coral reefs die.” – Elizabeth

“When creating my tiles, I thought deeply about the message each one represents, and reflected that through the different mediums used. All of them represent our reefs in some way or another, either though human interpretation, the dangers they face, or the poetry that rolls in the currents.” – Saskia

“Every small effort can make a difference; it may feel like there is no point because it’s small but if everyone has that mindset then the fall of reefs are imminent. If we don’t focus on what is in front of us it will be gone forever, these reefs need our help.” – Danny