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This is Sian Ka'an.
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Just south of Tulum
on Mexico's Caribbean coast,
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it's a federally protected reserve,
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a UNESCO World Heritage Site
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and one of the most biodiverse
regions on the planet.
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But when I first visited in 2010,
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I was horrified and completely confused
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as to why the beach was covered in trash.
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I soon realized that it was floating in
from all over the world.
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I've since returned,
after that first journey,
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several times a year
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to visit Sian Ka'an,
to the country of my birth,
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to work with this trash.
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And so far,
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we've documented garbage from
58 different countries and territories
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on six continents,
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all washing ashore
in this paradise in Mexico.
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Although I can never know
where a product was dropped,
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I can, at times, based on the label,
know where something was made.
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In red, you see all of the countries
represented by their trash
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in Sian Ka'an.
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Such as these Haitian butter containers
in all shapes and sizes,
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Jamaican water bottles.
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Not surprisingly, a lot of the stuff
is from neighboring Caribbean countries,
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but the stuff is from everywhere.
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Here's a sampling
of international water bottles.
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And one of the ironies is that
a lot of what I'm finding
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are products for cleaning
and beautification,
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such as this item from the United States,
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which is actually made
to protect your plastic,
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(Laughter)
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shampoo from South Korea,
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bleach from Costa Rica
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and a Norwegian toilet cleaner.
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And it's items that are all
very familiar to us,
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or at least I hope you're familiar
with these toothbrushes.
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(Laughter)
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Kitchen utensils.
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Toys.
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I'm also finding evidence
of burning plastic trash,
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which releases cancer-causing
fumes into the air.
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People ask what's the most
interesting item that I've found,
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and that's by far this prosthetic leg.
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And in the background, if you can see
that blue little bottle cap,
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at the time that I found it,
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it was actually the home
to this little hermit crab.
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This guy is so cute.
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(Laughter)
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(Laughter)
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And it's these fascinating objects,
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but also horrifying objects,
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each with their own history,
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that I use to make my ephemeral,
environmental artworks.
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And it all started with this image
in February of 2010,
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when I first visited Sian Ka'an.
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I noticed that blue was the most
prevalent color among the plastic.
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Purple is actually the most rare color.
It's kind of like gold to me.
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But blue is the most prevalent,
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and so I gathered some of the blues
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and made this little arrangement
in front of the blue sky
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and blue Caribbean waters.
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And when I took a photograph
and looked at the test shot,
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it was like a lightning bolt
hit me in that moment,
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and I knew I was going
to have to come back
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to create a whole series
of installations on location
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and photograph them.
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So this turned out to be a sketch
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for a work that I completed
three years later.
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I had no idea that almost 10 years later,
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almost a decade later,
I'd still be working on it.
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But the problem persists.
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So I'm going to show you
some of the images
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from the series that I called "Washed Up:
Transforming a Trashed Landscape."
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Please keep in mind that
I do not paint the garbage.
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I'm collecting it
and organizing it by color
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on the same beaches where I find it.
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This is my precious trash pile
as seen in 2015
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after putting on a first edition
of the "Museo de la Basura,"
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or "Museum of Garbage."
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It's fully my intention
to care for this garbage,
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to exalt it,
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put it on a pedestal
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and to curate it.
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We have all seen devastating images
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of animals dying
with plastic in their bellies.
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And it's so important for us
to really see those
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and to take those in.
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But it's by making aesthetic --
some might say beautiful -- arrangements
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out of the world's waste,
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that I'm trying to hook the viewer
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to draw in those that might be numb
to the horrors of the world
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and give them a different way
to understand what's happening.
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Some have described
the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
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as an island twice the size of Texas,
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but I've been told that it's hard to see
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because it's more like a smog.
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So through my artwork,
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I attempt to depict the reality
of what's happening with our environment
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and to make the invisible visible.
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My key question at first,
after starting the project,
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was, "What do I do
with the garbage when I'm done?"
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I was told by some
that it could be damaged goods
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after traveling across the ocean
and being exposed to the elements,
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that it could become degraded
and potentially ruin a batch of recycling.
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The landfill was not
a happy resting place, either.
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And then finally, it dawned on me,
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after all of the effort by me
and all of the people who have helped me
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collect and organize and clean this trash,
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that I should keep it.
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And so that's the plan,
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to use it and to reuse it endlessly
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to make more artwork
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and to engage communities
in environmental art-making.
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This is an example of a community-based
artwork that we did last year
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with the local youth
of Punta Allen in Sian Ka'an.
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A key part of the community work
are the beach cleans
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and education programming.
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And as this community
around the project grows
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and as my trash collection grows,
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I really believe that
the impact will as well.
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And so, over the years,
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I've become a little obsessed
with my trash collection.
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I pack it into suitcases
and travel with it.
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I take it on vacation with me.
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(Laughter)
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And in the latest work,
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I've begun to break the two-dimensional
plane of the photograph.
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I'm really excited about this new work.
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I see these as living artworks
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that will morph and grow over time.
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Although my greatest wish
is that I run out of the raw material
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for this work,
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we're not there yet.
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So in the next phase of the project,
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I plan on continuing the community work
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and making my own work
at a much larger scale,
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because the problem is massive.
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Eight million tons of plastic waste
enter our oceans every year,
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destroying ecosystems.
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Right now, as I speak, there's literally
an oil spill of plastic happening.
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I see this project as a plea for help
and a call to action.
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Our health and future
is inextricably linked
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to that of our oceans.
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I call the project "Washed Up:
Transforming a Trashed Landscape,"
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but it's actually transformed me
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and made me rethink
my own behaviors and consumption.
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And if it can help anybody else
gain more awareness,
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then it will have been worthwhile.
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Thank you so much.
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(Applause)