dirty beach

Environmental art exhibition

by Lou McCurdy & Chloe Hanks

Brighton Festival Fringe, May 2009

A thought provoking exhibition that highlights the terrifying costs of human waste to the marine environment

Award winning artist Lou McCurdy, renowned for her ground breaking project "More Plastic than Plankton" and graphic designer Chloë Hanks, who set up Plastic Bag Free Brighton, collaborated to bring an exciting and innovative show to this year's Brighton Festival.

Lou re-invents plastic rubbish found on Brighton beaches and makes big, colourful panels representing cross sections of the sea. They demonstrate the permanence of plastic and how much it is embedded. This is powerfully contrasted by Chloë's (A.K.A. ‘Hanksy’) eco-graffiti and the transient nature of her 100% bio-degradable work.

The eco-graffiti takes its cue from protest slogans, spray-painted graffiti, popular culture and humorous slogans written in the dirt on white vans. Often site, weather and tide specific, the work sometimes exists for only a matter of hours, before disappearing without a trace. The only permanent evidence of the work is photographic.

"Dirty Beach" T-shirts and bags - were the must haves for all Fringe goers!