Bottled Life

Oscar Carnevale, Big Picture, Hobart City High School

In collaboration with Dr Diane Purcell, CSIRO

Artist’s Statement

My art is inspired by Dr Diane Purcell’s work at CSIRO. I got to visit Diane’s lab where she grows and researches algae for potential commercial use. Algae can be found in a huge range of products such as jet fuels, bio petrol, vegan eggs, bio-plastic bottles, food colouring and even a pair of shoes. The thousands of little bottles all with living algae in her lab blew my mind. The way that Diane collects and grows algae interested me and I wanted to do it myself and grow my own algae. 

My first attempt to grow algae was to fill up 3 bottles with water from different areas of creeks and bushland. My samples had varied amounts of algae and other natural matter to make sure that they were individual enough to get different results. One bottle has moss, dirt, a stick and water from a stagnant pool of water in the bush of Glenorchy. The other two bottles have water from two areas of the Lenah Valley Creek, each with small rocks, gravelly dirt and some type of organism that has now grown to about 1cm long. The bottle with the moss and wood has grown the most algae out of the three samples. I used these early experiments to shape the idea for my artwork.

The materials I used for my art piece are plastic bottles that previously held popular every day drinks, LED lighting to promote growth, a few small sticks, moss, rocks, and some algae. I filled each bottle with water from different areas and played around with different coloured lighting to see if it altered the growing process of the algae.

Diane is interested in how algae could be used to provide health benefits to the population. I chose to use everyday beverage bottles to represent the potential algae has to change our lifestyles for the better.

I hope that this art piece shows how cool algae is and how many different uses it has, as well as how easy it is to grow. Algae is much more than a slimy water plant; it is such a sophisticated organism. 

Photographer: OI Studios

Description: The materials I used for my art piece are plastic bottles that previously held popular everyday drinks, LED lighting to promote growth, a few small sticks, moss, rocks, and some algae. I filled each bottle with water from different areas and played around with different coloured lighting to see if it altered the growing process of the algae.