SOUP

Mandy Barker is an international award-winning photographer whose work involvingmarine plastic debris has received global recognition. Her motivation isto raise awareness about plastic pollution in the world's oceans, highlightingthe harmful affect on marine life, and ultimately ourselves.

SOUP is a description given to plastic debris suspended in the sea, with particular reference to the mass accumulation that exists in an area of The North Pacific Ocean known as the Garbage Patch.

The SOUP series aims to engage with and stimulate an emotional response in the viewer by combining a contradiction between initial aesthetic attraction, with an awareness of the disturbing statistics that dispersed plastics have no boundaries, having a harmful affect on marine life and the biodiversity of the planet.

All the plastics photographed have been salvaged from beaches around the world and represent a global collection of debris that has existed for varying amounts of time in the world’s oceans. The first ten images represent the mass accumulation of plastic that exists in the North Pacific Gyre with plastic recovered from the UK, Europe and Alaska. The remaining ten images highlight the waste issue in Hong Kong with plastic debris collected from over 30 different beaches in Hong Kong over three years. This ongoing body of work aims to stimulate a response and create an awareness to encourage social responsibility.