Catching Clouds

Zaylia O’Brien, Big Picture, Hobart City High School

In collaboration with Luke Brokensha, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, UTAS

Artist’s Statement

My artwork is inspired by the research of Luke Brokensha, a phytoplankton taxonomist. He works on the Southern Ocean Continuous Plankton Recorder Program, where he identifies the different types of phytoplankton they find in the surface water and maps changes over time. He really enjoys creating a bigger picture of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean. 

Luke is studying phytoplankton, a microscopic creature in the ocean that make up a large percentage of the food chain. They are the food source of krill. They are so small you can only see them under a microscope. The more nutritious the phytoplankton, the more nutrition the krill will get, which affects the whole food chain. With the effects of climate change, some species of phytoplankton are at risk which would affect not only animal species in the water, but also us. 

I visited the Antarctic Division to see Luke’s work. I got to see how they fed phytoplankton to Antarctic krill. The water has to be kept very cold. The phytoplankton are such tiny little creatures and all different colours. The water colour changes as the krill eats the phytoplankton. I was amazed when I saw the colour change. It was a good, overwhelming feeling. I got all these random ideas come into my head. It made me hungry, it made me excited, and it got me inspired. I felt like I could do so much with this. 

When I was at the Antarctic Division, we went into this room with sea creatures that only a few people have ever seen. They stood out to me. I couldn’t believe these creatures were actually in our waters. They were weird. You’d flash a torch on them, and they seemed to glow. I loved how they glowed, the weird shape they were, and how they moved. They caught my eye. When I thought about what I wanted to do for my art, they really inspired me. 

The foundation of my artwork is made from a fishing keep net, this was inspired by how the Antarctic Division catch and keep krill and phytoplankton to study them. I have suspended shiny cardboard shapes with fishing line. The smaller coloured shapes represent phytoplankton, and the larger shapes represent a swarm of krill, who come together in a kind of cloud when they feel threatened. 

Photographer: Peter Whyte

Description: The foundation of my artwork is made from a fishing keep net, this was inspired by how the Antarctic Division catch and keep krill and phytoplankton to study them. I have suspended shiny cardboard shapes with fishing line. The smaller coloured shapes represent phytoplankton, and the larger shapes represent a swarm of krill, who come together in a kind of cloud when they feel threatened.