Gallery: Art by Mandy Barker

Issue: Fall 2019

Mandy Barker grew up collecting shells and driftwood on the beach near her home on the British coast. Now, she collects plastic. Working alongside scientists and researchers, she transforms data on ocean plastics into arresting collages of pollution. By pairing beautiful images with the ugly facts they represent, Barker hopes to spur public outcry and legislative change. “Cleanups are brilliant to remove the plastic that’s there,” she says, “but we shouldn’t be needing to clean up. We should be stopping it from actually entering the ocean. That’s the most important thing.”

Barker’s SOUP series is made from “plastic soup”—the plastic debris suspended in water, which constitutes 30% of the total plastic pollution that enters our oceans. (The other 70% sinks.)

SOUP: 500+
Ingredients: The pieces in this work represent 500+ pieces of plastic debris that were found in the digestive tract of a dead albatross chick from the North Pacific Gyre.

SOUP: BURNT
Ingredients: Partially burnt plastic. These have been burnt on land, on the beach, or out at sea and then released into the ocean.

SOUP: ALPHABET
Ingredients: Pieces of plastic debris with text still visible.

SOUP: NURDLES
Ingredients: Nurdles—preproduction resin pellets, less than a fraction of an inch in diameter, from which plastic is made.

SOUP: TOMATO
Ingredients: Red plastic debris, including items such as combs, children’s toys, food packaging, bottle tops, bags, balloons, and industrial coil.

SOUP: TURTLE
Ingredients: Plastic bath toys, recovered from the Alaskan coast 16 years after shipping containers carrying 28,800 bath toys were washed overboard during a storm.

Explore More

About: World Wildlife magazine provides an inspiring, in-depth look at the connections between animals, people and our planet. Published quarterly by WWF, the magazine helps make you a part of our efforts to solve some of the most pressing issues facing the natural world.

About WWF

Gallery: Art by Mandy Barker

Explore More