Surfers Against Sewage (SAS)

 Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) is a not-for profit environmental pressure group, based in Cornwall, this organisation focuses on the protection of the UK’s oceans, waves and beaches for all to access. This includes the use and enjoy safely and sustainably. This is done via campaigning, volunteering, conservation, education and scientific research.

 SAS focuses on environmental issues, including sewage, such as marine litter, climate change, offshore development, toxic chemicals.



SAS is a organisation which actively campaigns about beach litter and beach pollution. This interests me and I am going to research this organisation further. I think that this could develop my ideas in terms of campaigning through fashion.
Below are some examples of these campaigning T-Shirts.

http://www.sas.org.uk/

Vivienne Westwood

Whilst considering the subjects of campaigns/campaigning I found that a number of designers use fashion in order to promote and raise awareness of a certain subject. An example of this kind of awareness in fashion is by the designer Vivienne Westwood. Vivienne Westwood is famous for her passionate and outright views, usually on ethnical issues and climate change. These strong, passionate issues are often expressed by Westwood’s fashion campaigning.

An especially related example of this is the current Comic Relief T-Shirts that Westwood designed in March 2011. These recent designs were produced in order to raise awareness of the charitable organisation known as Comic relief.

Below are some examples of some celebrities wearing these T-Shirt designed by Vivienne Westwood. I am interested in the way that these T-Shirts are displaying these issues through fashion on catwalks. Vivienne Westwood, has used famous faces and iconic people in order to increase popularity and therefore awareness. An advantage to involving those that are famous would also be to use them as being role models to others.

Marine litter - Marine Conservation Society

As previously mentioned I have been spending a lot of time drawing on the beach. This lead me to think about the rubbish on the beach and how this could effect the environment, in a negative way.

I found that the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) is a UK charity, which works to protect Marine wildlife, sustainable fisheries and clean seas/beaches. In order to tackle pollution on beaches the MCS produces a programme called Beachwatch, which surveys the litter found on beaches. I found that this organisation has especially been useful for me to relate to my contextual studies on my industrial awareness report.

From this Beachwatch programme a survey was draw upon which  suggests that beach litter has risen enormously and consecutively since 1994. 

 Watch this space for more information and facts on the Marine Conservation Society and beach litter.

http://www.mcsuk.org/

 

Campaigning..

Whilst getting involved with this project I found myself observing the environment of the beach a lot. Here I found it surprising just how much litter there is on the beach. I found currently there is a rising number of problems surrounding beach litter, pollution and the effect that this is having on Marinelife. I am very interested in starting to research ideas in campaigning this problem and somehow promoting this.

Reasearch ideas to follow... 

Recent News...

I felt very saddened when I read a article in the newspaper today about marine life and the beach. The article was raising concern about litter found on the beach. This article relates to the deadly toll that our 'throwaway culture' is having on marine life. The picture above shows the shards of plastic which were found inside the stomach of a dead turtle that had ingested this rubbish.

The picture above shows the shards of plastic which were found inside the stomach of a dead turtle that had ingested this rubbish. The article I think just illustrates the battle against the rising tide of pollution. I think that the images above shows what an issue  beach litter and pollution is.
The article also has astonishing facts and figures, that really shocked and saddened me:

-Sea turtles are prone to mistaking plastic bags for jellyfish, one of their favourite foods.

-The plastic can block the digestive tract, leading to a slow and agonising death from starvation.

-‘More than 260 species have been reported to ingest or become entangled in plastic debris.’

-Worldwide, 260million tonnes of plastic are produced a year – up from just half a tonne in 1950.

- ‘Sea turtles have spent the past 100million years roaming seas free of pollution and are now sadly the poster animal for impacts of our throwaway society on endangered species.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1369438/Dead-turtle-ingested-100s-pieces-plastic-highlights-sea-pollution.html#ixzz1HjCJsRm4

Poppy Treffy - Artist inspiration

I find this artist, Poppy Treffy really inspiring. She lives and works in Cornwall, St Ives and seeks inspiration from her surroundings. She uses this inspiration to create, what I think are beautiful textile pieces. Although I find this very interesting, this is not the only thing that I can relate to whilst researching this artist. All fabrics and textiles she uses to create the pieces are recycled, which I also find pretty interesting and inspiring.
Below are some pictures of her pieces, which coincidentally also relate to the Seaside. Brilliant....! :)

 http://www.poppytreffry.co.uk/other-info/about-poppy-treffry

Norwich Castle Museum

The last three days I have visited Norwich Castle Museum and concentrated on drawing. I enjoyed looking at the fish that had been caught locally and drawing these. This I thought related to the fisherman's heritage that my project is concentrating on.
Whilst drawing I decided to consider the drawing lesson that I had a few days ago with John and therefore drew on colour paper. I liked to choose the colour of the paper referring to the object I was drawing. For example if I was drawing pink shell, I decided to draw on pink paper. I think that this helped to reflect the sense of drawing more and also made a difference from shading or colouring the object in :)

Some pictures of shells that I decided to draw here...