In preparation for Earth Day, The Save My Oceans Tour arrived in LA at USC, kicking off the local stop with a free concert headlined by T-pain. The tour is part of Participant Media's Social Action campaign for Disneynature's upcoming motion picture OCEANS.
Numerous college campuses nationwide are participating in hopes of raising environmental awareness about keeping our oceans clean and protected, while also encouraging people to take the online pledge to only use reusable bottles and bags instead of plastic ones.
In addition to the musical performances, artist Shepard Fairey contributed original artwork for the tour poster and sculptor Julie B. has jumped on the tour to install her series of sculptures "Infiltrate" at each campus stop. She creates life-size sea creatures from recycled plastic bottles and lights them from them from the inside at night, creating quietly haunting sculptures that remind viewers of the implications of using and discarding plastic into our oceans. The menacing outlines of plastic bottles appear from within the creatures -- quite literally illuminating the focus of the tour through art.
Julie B.says that "the motivating factor [behind this series] is the reality of where our discarded plastic ends up, and how that not only affects the oceans and its inhabitants but all human kind." When asked about the process of sculpting from recycled plastic bottles, Julie said, "When I took the initial challenge, it was hard to find anyone who'd managed to utilize regrind (discarded plastic ground into a usable molding substance) and eco-friendly material, in the way I knew it needed to be done to get the effect we wanted - where the creatures are opaque during the day and semi-transparent at night. In the end, while I'm keeping most of technique secret, everything had to be painstakingly hand applied."
The installation at USC runs through April 16th. To see where The Save My Oceans Tour is stopping next, please visit the site and take the pledge: http://www.savemyoceans.com/pledge.php.