The tsunami that devastated Japan in 2011 washed some 5 million tons of debris into the north Pacific. Three years later, much of the refuse is still at sea.
Photographer Mandy Barker spent a month aboard a ship with a team of researchers studying the impact of all that debris. Her series SHOAL offers a beautiful yet haunting example of marine pollution, the many fragments of garbage hanging in the darkness never quite disintegrating.
Barker joined the Japanese Tsunami Debris Expedition, a team of scientists, journalists, environmentalists, and others from eight countries. They spent four weeks sailing 3,800 miles from Japan to Hawaii, researching and documenting all the trash filling the Pacific 14 months after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami rocked the country. Skimming the ocean with a net called a trawl, the crew recorded one piece of garbage—toys, tires, a piece of a fishing boat—every 3.6 minutes.
"Being able to record plastic at source from such a unique location, despite the devastating circumstances and emotional impact of natural disaster has provided a unique opportunity for scientific research," Barker writes in her artist's statement.
She photographed collected debris while on board the ship, often braving rough waters and exhausting conditions. She later digitally manipulated the objects to resemble swirling schools of fish and arranged them in formations of species affected by plastic pollution. Each photo’s title indicates the coordinates where the trash was found.
The issues presented in SHOAL are not a new, however Barker's images offer a powerful visual aid for an ever-growing problem. According to 5gyres.org, some plastic sinks while other kinds float on the ocean’s surface. Sunlight and waves cause the plastic to fragment, leaving minuscule but enduring particles in the water. This sort of pollution is pervasive and difficult to clean-up. It is also harmful to marine wildlife. An increasing number of fish and turtle species are found to have ingested the plastic flecks, often with fatal results. The series also represents the more than 15,000 lives lost in the tsunami, each ragged item reminding the viewer of the devastation and loss that occurred on that fateful day.
“Staring down into the ocean and seeing unmistakable objects pass by such as a boot laced to the top, a pair of children’s shoes, buckets, cups, caps, felt-tipped marker, syringe, coat hanger, etc., are a constant reminders of lives lost,” Barker writes. “Unidentified plastic particles seem to represent people … A reminder of life from retrieved plastic, not only from the objects they once were, and where they came from, but more importantly from whom they belonged.”
