Shelf-Life
Mandy Barker, from Shelf-Life
Shelf-Life, a series of 10 photographs by British photographer Mandy Barker, will be on display in the Grand Foyer to draw attention to the plight of the world's oceans and the impact of pollution on marine life and, ultimately, ourselves.
The remote Henderson Island, part of the Pitcairn Islands, has been uninhabited by humans for centuries. Given its isolation, it should be a pristine haven for flora and fauna to thrive. But when a team of scientists arrived in June 2019, they found Henderson’s coastline littered with more than six tonnes of plastic rubbish.
Often starting life on the supermarket shelf, the plastic items the team documented had to travel vast distances to end up on the coral shelf surrounding Henderson Island. Simply using barcodes as titles, Barker traces the journey of these supposedly disposable objects from one shelf to another, and calls on us all to end our reliance on plastic.
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