Save the Ocean Art Project
Save The Oceans
Tsvetelina Spiridonova
This story begins one summer vacation in 2009, when my family and I traveled around the coast of the Turkish Black Sea. The beaches at first glance were desolate of people, wild and beautiful. Once there, and to our horror, we were eye witnesses to dolphin suicides. It was a devastating shock when we saw the dolphins on the beach slapping and splashing their fins and tails, trying to get as far from the sea as possible and onto the dry coast.
My 6-year-old son saw all this agony and burst into tears! As we started to learn more about these suicides the truth was—the unusually warm waters and the extreme pollution in the sea is causing this terrible tragedy! On those wild beaches which no one cleans, we found enormous piles of garbage,10ft high, from all different parts of the world, brought there by the currents and rivers. This touched our hearts deeply and we promised right then, to start doing something, for the sake of our mother–planet earth, for the sake of future generations, and for our own two children.
We promised to find a way to express our belief with the most innocent and sincere way of communication, through a collaborative effort... the arts.
We believe being an artist today means more than any time before. It means to be a socially aware person who is sensible and involved with almost everything meaningful in life. It is the way and the goal of our existence. To be a good artist today, we need to innovate artistically, and create a good message that is worthwhile and significant. We the artists, musicians, actors, poets, all of us, are very sensitive people. We feel the vibrations in the air that are directing us towards the importance of strong missions. Those missions can inspire and provoke positive change in humanity and world prosperity. Art can be a better, stronger, and a more universal tool of good will than any political platform.
As a result we were so inspired and wanted to find our role in this mission, myself as a printmaker who is always discovering and inventing new art experiments in the printmaking area and my husband, Kamon Dragomirov who is a photographer and sculptor. We started patiently collaborating on our ‘sea world through our eyes’ project.
It was extremely difficult for me as a mother of two children, to find dedicated time to work on my project. because it was so personal and so important, and with inspiration I managed to work day and night to create the work that represented our ocean creatures.
The concept of our project, Save The Oceans, included an exhibition of 50 artworks in a gallery as well as an open air installation. There were enlarged models of dolphins flying over the streets, between buildings and against the backdrop of the blue skies. The dolphins were messengers of the forgotten world, provoking thoughts and feelings of the meaning of life. Kamon created several 3D visualizations of Save The Oceans, in different places around the world. They can be seen at: http://linasimone.wix.com/art. The family of dolphins sculptures are made of organic straw and were installed so they could fly high above the street between the buildings in the center of Sofia, and in front of the gallery where I exhibited my artwork. Both inside the gallery and outside on the street we placed boards addressing different environmental problems and solutions; green ideas for implementation in everyday life. We had a dancing fiesta created by performances of tango and salsa. Our goal was to attract and to open the public’s eyes and hearts to the problems humans cause to the environment and our future. Using the universal language of art we wanted to capture audience attention on an emotional level, and invite them to participate. We hoped the direct emotional and visual message of our art would provoke this pure instinctive response. We wanted people to realize that the environment is damaged and being destroyed not from some imaginary, horrible asteroid but by us… the people.
The image of flying fishes above our heads was surrealistic, but not compared to the very real danger of our unsustainable way of living. It was time to take responsibility for what we have done and what we continue to do every day. The mission of the project was to inform, inspire, and compel change. Our mission was to help every individual to understand the complex interconnections of things, including the bad effects we may have thousands of kilometers away, as a result of the things we buy right here at home. We must view our everyday decisions as consumers and ask ourselves why, and how much of something we buy, is really necessary. We were determined to provoke a new way of thinking, with a more sensitive and a more complete view of any issue involving our human, planetary footprint, any activity, technology, product or decision, essentially everything in our lives. We wanted to show the inevitable need to reform our current mindset concerning our values and goals as humans and our economic mindset to buy and throw away. We are determined to replace this mindset with a more sustainable and sensible purpose.
Today’s iconic goal of existence, “the economic growth” is commonly measured by the growth of pure numbers. This goal is old-fashioned and unethical in the background of the environmental and social problems it causes for the future. We want to inspire a desire for change that will move towards a more sustainable and sophisticated society in pursuit of new opportunities for developing lives fulfilled with better values that give a real sense to our existence.
Today in 2016, the problem still exists; many people in the world do not realize that every minute is important for the big change in a new sustainable world. We must change our values, our measurements of success, and our goals. Our children must be educated to protect the planet in order to protect their own future.
There are many, many ways to distinguish our behavior towards nature and set an example if we choose to, a few examples follow:
Do not dispose of waste in streams and rivers for their paths lead to our oceans and seas.
Reduce the use of plastic bags in stores by wearing and carrying your fabric bag, revealing your sense of good taste and design.
People consume more than 1,200,000,000,000 (one trillion two hundred billion) plastic wraps and bags per year. Production of nylon, PVC, plastics, silicones and similar derivatives of oil pollute the air, water and land, inflicting irreparable damage to the ecosystem for hundreds of years. Purchase a reusable water bottle and refill it at home or the nearest water fountain when you are out and about.
Please follow us on Facebook: “Save the Ocean Art Project” where you will find additional ideas to conserve our natural resources.
Email: linasimone.art@gmail.com
The image of flying fishes above our heads is kind of surrealistic, but not much in contrast with the real-surrealism of our unsustainable way of living .
Our mission is to open the public eyes to the problems humans cаuse to the environment and it’s own future .
Using the universal language of art we try to catch the audience attention on the intuitive emotional level of perception, and then to invite them to participate and start making a difference from today .We hope the direct emotional and visual message of our art to provoke this pure instinctive response . We want to bring up in mind the realization that the environment is damaged and destroyed not from some imaginary horror asteroid ,but from Ourselves and it’s time to look into our children’s eyes and confess this sin.
It is time to finally take responsibility for what we have done and continue to do .
The goal of the project is to inform, inspire, and compel change .To help every individual to understand the complex interconnections of things ,like
the effects we have thousands of kilometers away, as a result of the things we buy here.
To view our everyday decisions as consumers from a more complex point of view, and ask ourselves: what, why and how much of something we buy. To provoke a new way of thinking with more sensible completeness over any issue and object creating our footprint - any activity, any technology, any product, any decision and goal , just anything in our life.
We need to bear in mind that every product requires energy to produce,mining and resources to create and transport to get it to us.
We want to show the inevitable need of reform to our throw-away-economy with something that has sustainability in mind ?
Today’s ICON-GOAL of existence -“THE ECONOMIC GROWTH” measured by the growth of pure numbers , is old fashion, and much unethical on the background of the environmental and social problems it causes for the future.
We want to inspire a desire for change towards more sustainable and sophisticated society pursuit of which will open to us endless new opportunities for developing fulfilled with better values and giving a real sense to our existence.
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