Our presenter is Pamela longer
Bartie distinguished professor at

the Welsh School of Art and Design at
Georgia State Pam is a prolific artist and

activist who has had over
forty solo exhibitions and

sixty five groups exhibitions and
galleries and museums around the world in

locations including the United States
China Italy Spain Japan and many others

I had the pleasure of meeting Pam just
months after first arriving in Atlanta and

I've seen her work in a number of venues I
was struck initially by her stunning and

a theory of paintings which represent
diverse materials and textures and

I continue to be intrigued by the range
of her work at the intersections of

art science and nature more recently
I've had the opportunity to

see some of her projects related
to issues of sustainability and

they call A-G. purse cultures and
installations which often archive

the junk that she's found on the beaches
around the world have a haunting and

urgent quality representing these objects
as simultaneously arbitrary nostalgic and

beautiful this work part of the Drifters
project that she stablished in

two thousand and
six addresses global plastic pollution and

the changing ocean Pym
began this project after

encountering the mountainous piles of
plastic the ocean was bringing to shore

in remote beaches in Hawaii and the
project has led her to collaboration's in

Atlanta China Greece Monaco Alaska Panama
the list goes on

and her work has been featured
in National Geographic and

also on the cover of Sierra magazine
working solo or with communities

has made scores of interventions cleaning
beaches of plastic all over the world

removing thousands of pounds of material
from the natural environment and

re situating it within
the cultural context

I've given just a very brief
synopsis to introduce her work and

there is so much more to know.

So please join me in
welcoming Pam love of art.

Thank you Naren thank you for
the hearty crowd who is skipping

the rejuvenation bar I know
it's happening today so

it's really nice to be here
because I feel like we are sister

entities just right down the road and.

Can kind of begin a more
maybe fruitful and

verdant collaboration I would love that.

A real lowering house lights
is that possible OK it will

make the slideshow better.

So I just got back from an amazing
place in Monaco which had.

One of our films was just premiered there
at the Blue Ocean Film Festival and

conservation summit and it was shown
at the oceanographic Museum which is

a cathedral to the ocean and.

It also focuses on art and science and for
me that this sort of triangulation between

art and science and
activism is the heart of my work so

to begin the ocean where for
me I feel like this is.

The most urgent and pressing
reality that we're facing right now

the ocean is not only the driver
of climate on this planet it isn't

truly the circulatory system and.

I believe it's also the sort of
consciousness of the planet it's where

life started on this planet and it's to
sum total of all the creatures that have

ever lived in there and
evolve from there and continue to and

right now there's just serious
serious problems with the sea so

my dad was an ocean lifeguard my
mother was a Delaware swimming and

diving state champion and I came back
to a connection with the ocean and I.

I had to get it back in my life because
it was missing being landlocked here in

Atlanta and decided in two thousand and

six that I was going to learn how to serve
and it simultaneously launched this whole

project which was now called
The Drifters project.

So this talk really though is about time
and it's about a different time frame

than we used to so
our in the mid eighty's worked for

a paleontologist called Jack Horner who's
MacArthur fellow Princeton distinguished

alumni and he we had a dinosaur
dig at this location and

this location isn't showed in Montana but

this was the Eastern at
Lanigan beach coast of.

The World in eighty million years ago so

to think about time in that different
time of that type of a time frame and

geologic time scale was an extremely
important and distinctive.

Turning point in my life so in my
twenty's I started working with him and

I started thinking about
time on a different scale so

the dinosaurs that were fossilized here
eighty million years ago were thirty foot

had restores along with some other species
but they were a large ground nesting

dinosaur that was fossilized in
an event very similar to Pompei So

a volcanic ash fall basically froze or
cooked.

The creatures in situ what they were
doing at that time in their life so

they were actually evidence
this became the evidence for.

Parental care by dinosaurs of
the babies so they had not only new

hatched hatchlings they had year Langs and
they had eggs all in the same nest

which meant the babies stuck around
in the mother was caring for them.

Which made them much more like modern day.

Flamingos essentially then they are modern
day reptiles So my job was to do drawings

and and this was soon prior to photoshop
and so a lot of scientific illustration.

Based on artists making composites and
so for instance this aid did not exist

we did it based on projecting
the curves and working with Jack Horner

with you know this the size and
shape of that the egg needed to be.

And then this big came published in
Scientific American and it made me realize

that a lot of what we know and
understand as science is conjecture and

it's based on our best guess at the time
and so you know science is an evolving

paradigm and more and
more I'm finding that artists have a voice

because we have very similar
research methodology as.

We look and study things very hard for

extended periods of time and
that I'm finding now at this stage in

the game which I think is you know a late
stage in the game but that scientists and

artists are joining forces in a way
that we haven't really in our lifetime

to address the most critical
climate issues of the planet.

So back to my own artwork I.

Did those drawings for work but
I had a much more expressive.

Style for my my personal work and

I was working with I guess I should have
realized it was going to start surfing

at some point when I started making
my paintings look like surf books but

I was working with copper and prettiness
to function as a kind of stand in for

wild nature so those things would
do their chemical interactions and

then I would come in with imagery and it
would basically seal that surface it was

like paving over the natural world
in the way that you know human.

Culture does so this was about that.

Again that Di did teach geologic time and

that the ice age would have remembered
a time when it was tropical.

This is a much more recent painting that's
similar materials but you know basically.

Fifteen years later.

And I.

Work with this kind of collision
now of these natural materials and.

For me the painting is actually
a very important almost antidote to

the Drifters work the plastic work
which I talk primarily about.

Because I can always is unsure of the
outcome in these that you know nature's

going to be fine and that the rainbows
will come out and humans will probably be

relegated to caves and
trying to scrap around for insects it's.

OK But
back to the idea of the dinosaurs so

we are now in a a point in the human
evolution of history where you know

this fossil sunlight essentially which
created the life on Earth which is now

creating these vast deposits of
oil which are now being depleted

are the evidence that we are in the you
know the later stages of the industrial

petrochemical world that we live in and.

If we think about that and
we think about this beautiful graphic as

a time frame of the history
of the earth itself.

You know all of these layers.

Basically add up to the oil that
we are now running through and

the whole US enough of which is this
last little slice of the spiral here

is the point in history in which
all human evolution has occurred.

But we are now at the end of that point so
the A group called the.

Commission for the watch when you're
used to your partners a period that

included the place the scene and
the whole of scene.

Those are a group of scientists who
determine the geologic age of the earth

and they've now determined
that in two thousand and

sixteen we are ending the whole the same
era and we're entering a new one

called Anthropocene in
the Anthropocene is literally.

The.
Human impact on the planet which will be

evident in the geologic record and
for me this is absolutely critical

because I see plastic as the physical
marker of the Anthropocene So

we will see this in future layers and
I have already found fragments of plastic

that are vulcanized they are becoming
a new composite with stones and

rocks as they pass by the south point
of Hawaii and become fused with lava

they are being Reese
wallowed by the caves as

these caves collapsed in earthquakes so
I'll talk about that more later.

But when did this word ocean plastic
become part of our vocabulary for

me that was in two thousand and

six when I was at the south point
of the big island of Hawaii and

now it's you know become something that
people can put as a product label.

On you know a.

Common hand soap you can buy a target.

So.

As this.

You know fossil field climate change.

Is basically changing the entire surface
of the Arctic and melting it and

causing these creatures which live
there to be under extreme distress and

we are now opening up the shipping
channels that are going to

pass through this place and exploited
even more we find the plastic has already

made it there before us so
you know there's there's something so

pivotal book about this moment to be alive
that I think there's nothing really more

urgent than seeing the linkages between
all these things and acting upon them.

So back to the beginning of my story I
was visiting Hawaii I used to go there

a lot in the ninety's and
I went back in two thousand and

five and I was going to an artist colony
that's right tip of the big island here

at a place called South Point and
when I found that place.

I I was just magnetically drawn there
I knew I wanted to see the face of

the Pacific Ocean and what that looked
like and even though my you know my little

cabin was up here I just
spent all my time down there.

And when you go to the Syria and
you see pictures from Google and

you see what the big looks like it's not
what you imagine of Hawaii's big island

has twenty six microclimates this part
looks more like Montana it's very barren

it's dusty it's dry it's cattle country
what you're looking at are trails for

livestock and there's really not
much human habitation there.

Except when you walk the beach so
this was the very first image that I saw

walking around that point and you know
as an artist I was kind of shocked and

like what is that what are these colors
I could imagine them being there and

then I was as I got closer I thought well
my God Is this a dump and then I realise

no this is actually being vomited out of
the ocean is not dumped by humans there

and this was within that first image that
I saw and it was just one of those moments

where your life changes and I realise
that this ocean is full of plastic and

it's now being vomited out onto the
beaches remote beaches all over the world

and to see the symbol of this toilet seat
was just like the driving metaphor for

how we see the ocean itself and
the natural world.

So I set up a field camp and
I started going down there by myself for

several years and
documenting photographically at first and

then literally cleaning the beaches
with as much as I could take out but

I started to feel like I was being
communicated with the ocean by the plastic

itself the materials ever on making and
this was one of the first photographs I

took and this is a drift net which
I'll talk more about in a moment but

it's it's more than that it's a net ball
meaning that it's a it's a tangle meant

of nets that the ocean is put together and
to me it was so much like a.

A sleeping corpse I could even see the
head of the Prost arms that it just felt

like this is a sign of contact of
a message that I need to follow up on so

this is a bigger netball you can see the
scale of it it's about forty feet long.

The some of the ropes in there are
disfigured around it actually are our nets

that are cut loose and left adrift so they
continue fishing and they are completely.

Down the poor all they are and tangling
and killing lots of species that are not

being harvested and
you know they wait times physically.

This is what the problem is
they are part of a large scale.

Way of looking at the ocean as
a kind of endless feed trough and

so we been thinking about this as the sort
of Bountiful plenty that is going to be

endless and go on forever and these
are all unintended caption I'm sorry for

these pictures are extremely painful for
me to look at but Nets and long lines.

And here for
sushi I mean this is the this is the.

Tune of factory fishing that is taking
out one of the biggest predators who

literally swim the entire
Pacific Ocean and an albatross and

you know they're there catching the tuna
but these there are so many albatross that

are also caught in these lines which can
be sixty miles long of baited hooks.

And I think the scale of that is something
that we're not aware of unless you're

on the ground and looking at it or
part of the industry itself so

to think about this is you know
this sort of like one catch

one day's haul on the ship.

Is just a wrong headed way to think
about the future of the planet.

So I wanted to do something
first of all with these nets and

I thought well I'm going to I've got to
get them back out of here and so I would

just cut them and carry them it's about
three miles back to the vehicles and it's.

A hot and dry and windy place and I made.

The first image which was a drift net so
adrift web so

it was like a combination of a spider web
as a predatory tool with the giraffe net

but also to talk about the connection of.

The cycle of life in the sort of web
of interconnectedness of the planet and

I've made.

A number of them there's actually
one up in the airport right now.

And the other thing that our earlier
in endless quantities are are all of

the plastic household objects
of our life so this was you know

again one of these photographs where I
felt like I was entering a crime scene and

I had to document that material
stuff that we use every day so

you know I was sort of born into
the plastic era you know this was.

How you had your birthday parties and
your dinner parties and.

I was born in fifty eight plastic became.

You know Kershaw Lee
widespread in the fifty's.

Was invented in the thirty's so it's
really literally sixty years that we've

done this to the ocean that's a shocking
thing to imagine and what that is is that

there are these large jar systems which
are circulating currents Here's a little

Hawaiian right here this is what's called
the North Pacific subtropical gyres and

can see the directions of those
currents and so all of the stuff that.

Landed on that point was on its way to the
jar where it's not an island per se but

it's a vast vast area when I started
this in two thousand and six they were

describing it as the size of the state
of Texas then it became double the size

of the state of Texas then it became the
size of the continental United States and

now we know there is one in every
major oceanic jar system and and

there are six of ones in all the minor
ones as well so there's eleven total.

And I do.

Sided I've got to get this material back
and just show people what was happening

there so those objects that come out
of the things those the bags and

the points that I was cleaning.

I started to look at as
these strange poetic.

Cultural artifacts and
there was no way to really.

Talk about them except to let them be so
I started to make portraits of them and

and the strange kinds of messages that
were coming from this material which had

been changed by it's
travel across the ocean.

And one of the first things I found that
really convinced me that I was dealing

with something that was going
to be a long term project was

I found these two pieces of plastic at
Southpoint and they were near each other

and so what is this that we're looking
at are we looking at you know the Iraq

war toys set her was just an army
man that got somehow mixed up and

put next to a child's
Zuda plastic animals that

you know those were questions I had but
the point to me was that.

In two thousand and six was the height
of the the second Gulf War And

here we are having the acculturation of
children through plastic toys which are in

themselves made of of oil So
war is being promoted.

A war against oral.

Against losing oil essentially is being
promoted through the toys that are.

Given to children and
not only that these were amputees.

I found so many firearms as well
it's very interesting this one's

particularly good it says Universal.

And then other objects which are more
particular like for me that the bubble gum

is a kind of a two prong double
whammy because it's a stir flax come.

And I'm a surfer and
it also is talking about my main

addiction to plastic which is the gum.

Gum attic and gum is made of plastic.

And I wanted I need to twelve
step program to get off of it.

So.

I saw it like I've got to make a sign and
you know this is one of the first pieces I

made and it uses the idea of
the color blind in this chart.

An hour and a certain Rebus
formation of the word Dead Sea

because I don't think we see the plastic
I think it's that we don't see it for

what it is it's so
ubiquitous it's around us at all times and

it's also selling itself
to us through this color.

Then I thought well I'm it's actually
a mirror of ourselves because

these are things that we use every day so
many cones and toothbrushes and

just you know these materials
that are our pictures of us and

you see the top is all these umbrella
lanterns so I made these very large scale

black mirrors and
no sooner had I finished the first one and

then the Deepwater Horizon disaster
occurred so that the black became

very significant to me as the most
representative color of plastic for

its relationship to oil.

I made pieces that referenced
the scientific structure of plastic and

the reason that it's.

So dangerous to humans and
to up to all animal bodies and

fish and you know basically
the entire living part of the planet

is that it is an organic compound it
is based on a hydrogen molecule and

when the plasticizers that go into
the make the plastic is different

you know qualities transparent
hard whatever color it is

those things leach out of the material
into the surrounding water and

if that water is your water bottle
that's what you're drinking and

those things act in our
bodies like estrogen so.

Endocrine disruptors.

They are changing not only the creatures
of the planet for instance some sea

creatures like sea cucumbers and
starfish started out as female and

then a natural part of the progression
is to turn now and they never do so

they're not reproducing at the same rate
in our bodies it is now been linked to

A.D.H. D. all Simers obesity breast
cancer lower testosterone in males and

a particularly heinous.

Disease a sort of genital birth
defect called hyperspeed E.O.

where babies are born with the Pew
research coming out the side of

the penis instead of the center so
they have to operation from birth.

They're prepared with plastic This is
coming from their mother's bloodstream.

But for
me really like I'm Ari I feel like.

My primary concern is with the the sea and

the creatures of the sea who
are also feeling this impact and so

these are all lighters that were recovered
from albatross nests on Midway So

that means these four
hundred ninety lighters were.

Brought to the.

Nast by the mother or father albatross
these birds are extraordinary there have

seven foot wings fans they fly for
three weeks without stopping up into

the Arctic Circle which brings
them directly over that gyre and

they dip down in and pick up food squid
crabs you know normal things only now

a large majority of what they bring back
is plastic and you can see right here

this is Mother Albatross is vomiting
a lighter to her baby so what happens of

course of this is the pictures that
you've probably seen a million of.

The babies die with their
stomachs full of plastic so

they're completely impacted with plastic.

And this is a crime against nature.

I also started to use the pieces to talk
about another concept which I ran into

when I was shopping at Trader Joe's now
I sort of like Trader Joe's because it

reminds me of lying California but I kind
of hate Trader Joes too because they have

all their produce wrapped in plastic
they do have good prices on wine and

they have nice flowers but all together
I have a lot of problems with them and

one of them is their mentality
about certain things so

one of their little cute handwritten
signs in the in the Trader Joe's on.

In Buckhead said how can
we continue to offer so

much seafood at such incredibly
low prices economies of scale and

they had a picture of a kid fish and I
started thinking about that word economies

of scale it's actually a marketing term
and it's a marketing term that's now been

applied to the ocean and what it means is
that you know the more volume that you can

produce the the the lower price per unit
for each thing so it literally has been

you know the way that we have continued
to exploit the world's oceans and

now we know just from two thousand and
ten the consensus of marine life has

has represented that there are ninety
percent depletion of the top

predatory species in the ocean which of
sharks tuna swordfish and of the large

bill fish so those are the top of the food
chain once you start losing those here

you're really looking at
a collapsing ecosystem.

So I took this piece which is also plan
words because the idea of scale but

it goes it's twenty feet long it goes from
a single styrofoam ball found in a sea

cave in Greece up to that fifteen pound
net float which was found in Alaska.

And each one of these this is.

On an interactive Web site
where you can learn the.

Where it was found what it is and you
know some facts about the different kinds

of production that it represents.

Since two thousand and five of been
working in Catalonia in Greece which is

I mean not to those of five two thousand
and eleven for five years and Catalonia is

an amazing island that is part of
the Ionian Sea So this is in the.

Western part of Greece and
the other Ionian Islands are core through

with a car and another larger Michael's
on type of Catalonia is the biggest and

it is an extraordinary island it's
ringed by sea caves and I've been.

Working there on the ground in a kind of.

Community based effort
cleaning the sea caves.

Mobilizing the Naval Academy children and

adults the adventure community
there's a lot of kayakers and

and and and divers and whatnot with
this idea of plastic free island and

that was the film that we showed
in Monaco just a week ago.

And I have just a brief clip I'll show
you this the first part of it because

this was kind of an extraordinary.

Place that we.

Cleaned in two thousand
a lot in two thousand and

twelve I discovered it in two thousand and
eleven but I want to just play the first

five minutes of the film because you can
see of see what is happening there so

this film was what we showed in Monaco
this is actually the an earlier version

that was a sketch loops and
I want to do that I wanted to.

Do full screen OK.

And I think the sound is
going to be on please.

Worst way to.

Do.

It.

Was to go

where.

There was.

Rays shining wires.

You

know.

Everything

I.

Did.

And.

Then I started.

They.

Hear you.

Here and

they.

Do it.

My razor

is.

The

first.

Three is still a new.

Experience we were only
wireshark a measure of

a.

Leader and you're.

Just.

Trying.

To.

Write.

A.

Few things.

Only.

Bearly three was getting.

Rid of excess believe plastics
back in the city as i

recently.

Read.

In a river.

And I just.

Thought that.

This is.

This is this.

For you our.

Bases for life.

Is this where is a greater way or saw.

The most.

Amazing beautiful I was
a scientist I see a mess like.

This.

Where.

This.

Whoops.

OK.

So that's that's just
the beginning of the thirty minute.

Film and.

Sorry.

Effect where it was.

So.

You know the primary material that was was
in the cave really was started from and.

The thing about the star from I think
that's really critical is that.

First of all it's still being used.

For food packaging all over
the world it is a known

carcinogen it's starring And
the thing that's particular about

Greece is that they basically use
these star phone containers for

their bait and they no longer have
like these giant fish you hold to put

the cash you know they're fishing
with nets that have eyes to stick so

you know this is we're looking at a kind
of an advanced overfished location there.

And yet this very fisherman I've been told
by other fishermen that they're throwing

the plastic star from containers
right into the ocean and

that's why they're so
present there it's everywhere and

yet what the way nature does is makes
it looks incredibly interesting and

most people don't even see it because
it looks like rocks or coral so

we took almost two thousand pieces of.

Star from out of the cave.

And returned the following year with
students and we were able to make with

clean up that we mobilized hundreds
of people on the island this large.

Or a Borroughs which is actually you know
a very old symbol the snake eating its

tail which Interesting enough is how the
scientist who discovered the structure of.

The carbon molecule had a vision about
that that was snake was spiraling around

a bit on his tail and so he saw he saw
that it had to be a ring shape structure

but the truth of the aura Borroughs is
that it also is something in nature and

snakes when they're under stress
will actually eat their own tails

as well octopi eat their own arms and so.

You know it's like to me it's another
symbol that's beyond it's like a spooky or

in reality then it is
even in the thought logy.

And this piece became a moving sculpture
that was part of a performance and

it was shown in the center square.

And then moved last summer to the good
laundress Museum of Natural History and

by the time it got there it had died and
it got kind of crushed along the way and

it was more like the skin of the stick
now so this was the poster or bore us.

And the glamorous museum show was really
interesting because we collaborated with

a number of the scientists who
are studying the marine environment there.

This is of no other piece I mean I'm
a skip over but the and most interesting

part for me was that there are were
existing dire RAM is in this museum and

so I was able to do interventions in those
diaries and this meaning that I placed

this plastic insitu around the creature
set in the ways that they're affected and

this was plastic that came directly
from that island of California.

This is a leatherback sea turtle the other
one is a Mediterranean monk seal and

then my favorite thing that I got to do
was they actually have a triceratops and

they let me make a styrofoam
landscape underneath him and being

underneath the ribs of that triceratops
really was like being in a cave so

it sort of became like the cave again and
brought that whole.

Thing full cycle so I have a couple
more things I could talk about or

we could stop here and have questions
it's I think it's about five to twelve.

But your preference.

What I have is Panama with
the queen our meal and

leatherback sea turtles when I see that
OK I was there in Panama this is the most

remote part of Panama it's on the very
border with Colombia and it is.

Basically like the headquarters of
the narco trafficking areas very

remote very dangerous place once you
get outside of their village which is

absolutely beautiful it's
the Crimean Jala are an indigenous

peoples that are autonomous they own
the land they have their own laws.

However that means also that they have no
municipal facilities from the government

of Panama there's no water there's no
electricity there's no sewage system so

when you're there you are living in these
beasts that Chuck's and because of that

it isn't one of the major leatherette
sea turtle nesting sites in the world.

And they have every year a sea turtle
Festival which is basically some

how some people you know twenty people
maybe find out about this in are able to

make their way there it's really hard to
get there you have to take two planes and

then you know a boat two boats and
a plane and

you you essentially are in a place that
there are no roads going to this so

that you can't drive there you have to
come by this other route and they have

they're the most beautiful people there
are just absolutely lovely their culture

they make these incredible clothing
This is how the women dress and

they make the clothing that called mole
eyes which just means clothing but

they're basically like
an a living cultural adaptation

of symbology and you know they they
change so they have you know it's not

just traditional patterns there are these
are artists these women are artists and

they'd be their arms and
legs as you can see and she would.

Came a good friend of mine and

so I was brought there to work with the
plastic because they have some of the most

inundated beaches in the world and
my idea was that here's

a group of women artists it's extremely
hard to get materials to them.

And yet they have all this plastic so I
sort of showed them how the plastic could

be a like an art material and one of the
other things that happened you saw that

picture of the sea turtle he doesn't
belong here he's almost you know

he's like one hundred yards from the beach
and he you know if they weigh a thousand

to two thousand pounds so it's incredibly
strenuous for them to come on land and

to lay their eggs and
it's not a he it's actually a she but

they got confused by these you know
a well meaning NGO had given them for

the first time during
the winter solar lights and

so the lights were now shining
out in the village and

therefore attracting the sea turtles
to come on land because they don't.

They don't know what a light is and the
lightest thing that they usually see is

the breaking waves and that's what they go
to so then be in confusion after they've

you know strained and
laid these eggs nests and

covered the nests you see the lights and
they started walking the actually made it

all the way into the village on going down
the little dirt road to the village and

you know how do you move it that two
thousand pound turtle it's really

difficult so it was a disaster and
it happened while I was there so

that the project became even more.

You know like in the best
possible way like that but

it helped those wildlife
because what we did was we took

these big five gallon plastic drums
that were all over the ocean.

Beach and made these like covers for
them in the the women actually decorated

thems because they are creative and
they like things to look interesting and

colorful and so
we just drilled pieces of plastic and

attach them to this like cover so that
they would look good in the daytime and

please the women and the rest of the
village and then do a function at night.

Just to block the light.

So it was kind of a conservation when for

the turtles It was
an engagement the women were so

cool and you know they don't even speak
Spanish they speak their own language so

this is Amanda who was a Fulbright
scholar and she'd been living there for

eight months and she had learned
the language and so she was able to be

the interpreter and so you know
the lights became a real protection and

then the women interested in this
material had formed a plastic co-op.

To use the material you
know which I I forgot I

didn't put a picture of the way the
beaches look but they are horrendous and

then from all this plastic that I picked
up there I made this image which.

Became the cover of Sierra magazine and.

They really wanted to use
an iconic image that.

Showed.

You know some sort of relationship
between the human and the plastic and

I said I want the plastic to look back you
know I made images in my paintings before

of these sort of like isolated eyes and so

they said what about the most
iconic image of eyes that exists.

To anybody recognize yeah so
it's the it's a National Geographic

photograph by a public NO NO.

I can't remember his name right now but

the Afghanistan girl who strangely
enough someone described her as.

Having the most see green eyes.

And this such a haunted look and
you know you can see by

the materials there that most of
the things were actually toys.

For children and
there's one little thing in there that.

You know it's just it is not a close up so
I can't show you but.

It's sort of like a perversion of
the future to me and so I had I wanted to

use those things and I you know for
me it was just became them again the most.

We statement about that
experience in Panama.

And seeing the children and

a lot of them actually find their toys on
the beach that's where they go shopping.

And and most of these toys are sort
of marketed towards children and

a lot of them specifically
towards girls so.

I think that's maybe we're all stop in
case anybody has any questions and I know.

There must be some.

Ideas or.

Thoughts you might

have.

Or us depressed if you
found a hard subject but

you know I don't know I am not
actually at all I'm mobilized and

motivated because when I started this
in two thousand and six was by myself.

Felt like I was completely by myself and

then year after year you know when I
decided just to hard nobody care and

I can't do this another time I can't
bend over for the millionth time.

Suddenly there were more and
more people doing it and

now it's literally a movement it is
a global movement and there are there's so

much activation happening
all over the world and.

I think we have about five
minutes to figure it out but

to me I'm hopeful I'm really hopeful
because you know there I can just see

the change that's happened in the ten
years that I've been working on this and

you know it's extraordinary.

Somewhere in.

Her.

Size.

You know.

Where.

You.

Are.

Or.

And so.

You.

Know.

It is massive and you know that
it's a problem that you know but

but the thing is I feel like there's
something that every single person can do

we do every day we make decisions like.

Towards or away from plastic in every
single move we make do you bring

your own baggage you bring a plastic bag
do you forget those bags in the car and

then make yourself walk the groceries
out that's how I train myself

to not forget them you know.

Do you buy the product in a glass jar or
the plastic bottle in matter if you

like the other one better you know I think
all those things are little steps and

I think once people realize and I'm so
sad there's not like a ton of students

here because this is everything they need
to know they need to know that they're

getting poisoned every drop of water that
they drink out of those plastic bottles

it's at seventy degrees those
chemicals leach into those bottles and

usually you know I speak a lot in a lot of
places and usually at that point when you

see like the seventy degree things and you
know there's always people in the room and

I say I'm sorry I'm calling you out but I
care about the fact that this is happening

to you knew you don't know it and
so you know literally I

see people crying I see people come up
to me and they're just like you can tell

their faces they have been impacted
tremendously by the information and

I think it's we're in an Occupy moment all
all it's going to take is is you know just

basically that the knowledge to spread and
then people will stand up in droves and

I think it will be like we're
not accepting this anymore and

once the faucet gets turned off on land.

Things can start to address the other part
of the problem it is an enormous problem

and it seems overwhelming but I personally
ten years into it I'm more energized

than I ever have been.

So.

Any other thoughts.