German director Florian Fischer, 40, discovered diving at the age of 18, while on a trip in Egypt. Today, he describes diving as his favorite creative playground. « For me, diving is linked to creativity. I like diving but I’m not the typical diver who enjoys just to be there. I need my camera because I always have some visual ideas. » Florian evolved from being a graphic design working in the advertising world to a documentary filmmaker documenting the civil war in Burma to an independent filmmaker. Guided by his creative instincts, Florian co-founded Behind the Mask six years ago in order to shine a light on the beauty of nature and the ocean. « Dealing with conservation with a clear conservation message is important, but we figured out how we could raise awareness differently, » he explains. « Today, we document the beauty of the ocean to bring people want to save it. »

Behind the Mask’s films and stories are loaded with authenticity. Drawing from his experience as a creative mind in a narrow world that didn’t suit him, Florian believes that nothing beats telling true stories with guts. « It’s not about me, it’s not about a production company, it’s more about a community. At the end of the day, we portray authentic feelings. And there is no other way to do it than actually feel these emotions. » Similar to French freediver Guillaume Néry and underwater & wildlife photographer Greg Lecoeur, Florian is surrounded by a global network of creative nature enthusiasts. This community being the masterpiece of his work.

Avoiding compromises, looking for beauty, the collective constantly dives deep in the seven seas. From Azores to California, from Papua New Guinea to Indonesia, across the fjords of Norway or on a recent trip to Antarctica in -1°C water, Behind the Mask managed to combine what all creatives dream of: the perfect balance between a certain kind of creative freedom, a bunch of transparency, lots of passion and a needed touch of insanity.

Tell us more about you and your background..

I’ve always been working as a freelancer in the creative industry, mostly doing websites and graphic design. I studied filmmaking and worked a lot in the advertising industry. At the same time, I was also working for a big advertising agency in the south of Germany as a documentary filmmaker. I worked a lot in Russia (Siberia) and in Central African Republic. Then I spent most of my time working on the issue of the civil war in Burma (Myanmar). I’ve always seen myself more as a documentary filmmaker rather than a scenic filmmaker where you need a lot of people and need to wait a lot of time until something happens. While documenting the horrible genocide in Burma, I realized how difficult it was to raise awareness on something because it’s hard to find the right way to address people, especially when it comes to human rights or conservation. Everyday, people feel already guilty about a lot of things. So it’s difficult to make a difference. After my studies, I worked as a creative director for a company for a year. And I hated it. Then, I had a company with 18 employees for 4 years. It was an online agency where we developed websites. I was in charge of the design and creative part. After that, I did a lot of filmmaking for advertising companies and fashion brands. And I also hated that. The fashion industry is a very bad place for creative people. I decided to use my passion and do it for my own fun.

That’s when you decided to created Behind The Mask?

Yes, it was 6 years ago. I started Behind the Mask with two friends. Nothing serious at the time. We all had our job but thought maybe we could make a few films about diving, and maybe we could go on diving trips for free! That was the whole idea at first. We were 3 guys at the time, a photographer, the other one was a diver, and me as the filmmaker. We first worked with travel agencies and brands. I live in Germany and I know there’s a lot of people living close to the sea and have way more opportunities than we have. So at the beginning I thought it was not something very promising, just something to do on the side. But eventually, 3 years ago, I quitted my job and sold my shares in the company. I didn’t like working as a CEO for the company and preferred to be fair to my partners. So here I am today, working full time for Behind The Mask.

How did you get introduced to the sea, the ocean or the global water element?

Diving is very much connected with the filmmaking. I’ve not been diving without a camera for many years. I like diving but I’m not the typical diver who enjoys just to be there. I need my camera because I always have some visual ideas and I hate when I feel like I miss something I can’t capture. When I don’t have my camera, most of the time I don’t go in the water. For me, diving is linked to creativity. I started diving at the age of 18, more than 20 years ago, on a trip to Egypt with my girlfriend. We had a camera with plastic bags around, this kind of homemade housing. We had to fix it several times because there was water coming in. Slowly, it became a thing! Today, if you look at the diving community, I don’t relate much to it. I have a very specific opinion regarding the diving industry especially in Germany. When I started diving, I thought it was fun. It meant adventure, excitement, being close nature, it was about discovering new things and, at the same time, diving is something you can share with other people. My vision of diving never included any notion of competition. I’ve always enjoyed diving as a creative playground. I see it as a feeling, as a chemistry. Diving is an easy place to collect all the emotions and feelings, it’s also an abundance of stories, people, species, animal and locations. There’s a million things. Diving is the coolest thing on earth. The diving industry in Germany is far behind this vision. So I thought there was a great opportunity to combine all the things unique about diving.

3 years ago when you sold your shares to the company, what was your precise vision of Behind The Mask?

I have been quite lucky since the very beginning. I could have made decisions not based on business only. I don’t have a lot of money on the bank but thanks to my work, I achieved some creative freedom. I can be both creative on one side and be paid on the other. I don’t have to make compromises. Every creative person dreams about doing what they like to do, grow their creativity, and be valued and respected for it. For me, it was clear. I wanted to invest in something bigger. It’s not about me, it’s not about a production company, it’s more about a community. Most of our collective decisions are taken with a strong eye on community, on bringing people together. For example, for most of the projects, we spend 80% of the global budget on the logistics and on paying people. Most of the time, we bring more people than we need on set and during trips, just because we want to have a good time together, and we want to achieve this together. At the end of the day, we portray authentic emotions and feelings. And there is no other way to do it than actually feel these emotions. So it’s been a journey to find people I enjoy working with, who are also flexible and who want to serve that community. We like to make tutorials in order to share experience and knowledge. In the first place, the idea of Behind the Mask was to be very transparent with everything. I always hated it when I saw a picture about a place where somebody obviously tried to make it even more than it actually is, by not telling where it is, or not telling when it is. So I thought it would be pretty cool to give these infos to the viewer. Transparency means we always disclose everything. What we do, how we do and what equipment we use… We show and share everything as we’re not trying to make ourselves super cool or super special. All of that is only possible because of this sense of community. We have enough clients and projects to allow us to do that today.

Tell us more about this community gathered around Behind the mask…

There’s a lot of people who are considered to be a member. There are 4 to 5 core members involved with mostly everything. Hamdan Chowdhuri is from Bengladesh, Canada and Singapore and he is our Good Vibration Manager. He also shoots a little bit underwater. He’s an amazing person, everybody loves him. Timo Dersch is the project manager, doing the office stuff, planning things, posting things and writing comments. He’s from Germany and comes from the diving industry. He’s been an editor for a magazine and also shoots photos. We also have Maika Grützediek , she worked as the editor-in-chief of a magazine and resigned a couple of years ago. She’s more experienced in life than the rest of us. She communicates with potential partners and sponsors, and knows all the advertising clients. She has a very good standing in the watch industry for example. Dada Li comes from China, she is a freediver and Padi ambassador. She’s also a very successful blogger in China, she helps us in the Chinese market and is also part of our production works. She is definitely a smart brain. We have Marta from Spain, the newest member of our team. Marta won a competition on Facebook to join us on the project. She is now part of the team. Vanessa comes from Germany and is doing all the tutorial videos about underwater images, she does motion graphic. Peter is also a new member and works as a filmmaker. These are people I communicate regularly the most. Everybody is doing his or her own stuff so that it’s a loose network, but when you look at how much we spent time together last year, it’s maybe more than with our own family. Mario Medarevic is in charge of Dive World Canada, he’s been on a project in the Bahamas with us recently. Whenever we have technical issues, we can relate to him. Then, there are a lot of freelance friends, ready to go on a trip whenever it’s possible but they’re not involved in decision making. Greg Lecoeur is one of the photographers we regularly work with. We’ve been to Antarctica in February and March along with Guillaume Néry…

Tell us more about this recent trip to Antarctica with french photographer Greg Lecoeur and freediving champion Guillaume Néry…

It was a project of 3 different personalities. Guillaume Néry is a freediver and more of a creative mind. He’s also a writer and a multitool creative. Greg Lecoeur is an outstanding National Geographic photographer, and I’m a filmmaker. We thought that doing a project together, we could, from different angles, raise interest of the same place. It was also an experiment to do something together and see how we relate to this special place of Antarctica. None of us has ever been there. Guillaume is wiring about it, I’m doing a film about it and Greg made pictures. We’re thinking of doing an exhibition, a book and a multi series-documentary. The trip was more challenging than expected because of the weather and because we didn’t have enough time. So we’re thinking of going back there and doing it again. It was an interesting experience because it worked well with the 3 of us. We became even closer friends. Now, we’re currently releasing a few videos about this trip.

There was an ecological aspect as well, wasn’t it?

We partnered with Parley and took water samples to see whether scientists can find micro plastics in Antarctica, which is an inhabited continent. It would be interesting to see the human influence on such a continent regarding plastic pollution, but we don’t have any result yet. We took 75 different water samples on different locations that scientists will have a closer look on. The samples are still in Ushuaia, Argentina, as we need to figure out how to send the samples to the US-based scientists. Antarctica is an interesting place with a challenging environment. Swimming in -1°C water in a wetsuit was a thing! We learned a lot about ourselves.

Most of Behind the Mask’s projects seem very challenging indeed. What was the idea behind your « Life is an Ocean » project made in collaboration with Boot?

Behind the Mask is the official ambassador of the Boot show, so we work together with the show as an umbrella company to support what we do. We promote the show because we think they’re doing great. Boot is one of our partners. Life is an Ocean is basically a summary of our four last years. It shows the viewer how we feel about what we do. Life is an Ocean relates to all the emotions that you have, you can mirror those emotions in the ocean. It’s a bit of a philosophical narration. We want to inspire people and get them interested in this world they might not know much about. At the same time, we also want to inspire people who are already divers or content creators. At the end of every year, we create a video that sums up our year’s projects and this video campaign is a common platform your can relate to.

In one of these summary videos, you said « We believe that more people should feel the ocean magic so that we can save it. » Is Behind The Mask a way for your to raise awareness of the ocean?

Well, we’re not there yet as we didn’t find the tool we can use to really promote conservation ever more aggressively. For now, the goal is not to point at negative things. We try not to push people to change their life while providing content that people can make this conclusion by themselves. In the beginning, I thought the idea was a bit weak, NGOs would do differently, but I don’t feel confortable doing that. We’re not scientists and we don’t want to end up in the same box as everybody else. Dealing with conservation with a clear conservation message is important, but we figured out how we could raise awareness differently. Today, we document the beauty of the ocean to bring people want to save it. Everybody relates to the beauty of the ocean and we need to protect it. It gives us more satisfaction and confidence and it acts better than we thought.

What do you like the most in your job today?

I have the freedom and capability of bringing together people, and involving different kinds of people. I like to collaborate with creative minds and like to support and assist people in what they want to do. I also try to include this under Behind The Mask. The biggest challenge is to deal with teams and people, and to give people enough room to grow and do their own things. How I envision Behind The mask in the future? I see it as a lot of different things. We’d like to release masterclass tutorials for underwater imaging for free, so people can learn how to technically do it. We’d like to create a community, giving them the possibility to be part of something. Now that we have a lot of dedicated people united under the same philosophy, I personally need to give some things away. The freedom of creating projects not based on how much money it makes is probably what I enjoy most, as well as the trust from collaborators and clients. For example, we never make storyboards. The way we work is very creative and free. We always keep for ourselves the option to change things. When we go somewhere and realize the conditions are bad, we change our plans. We have a deal with our clients: They don’t have to pay anything if they dont like it, and won’t be able to use it. 

Do you have funny stories to tell about projects that didn’t work out well?

We had a few funny catastrophes where things didn’t work out! We had a project for Mercedes, a story about a small girl and sharks in Scotland. We drove there with two cars, it took us 2 days. We had 12 people around. Greg Lecoeur was there, there was all the logistics planned for 2 weeks of shooting on an island. But the weather was so bad that we couldn’t do anything so we needed to rearrange and move everything to the other side of the UK. We reshot the video about the girl with great seals, which, in the end, the client loved very much. But it’s the perfect example of what challenge means! In the end of the day, this is what make the best memories. I enjoy to collaborate with interesting people like Fred Buyle, amazing freediver and underwater photographer. We stayed in his house in Azores for two weeks and became friends. Stuff like that is the coolest. I love to plan new projects and involve creative people.

What are the new projects coming up for Behind the Mask and its team of creatives?

There’re so many different things going on. Next week, we’re going to Italy, we do an interesting collaboration with a glass artist who is shaping glass, statues and objects out of glass and water. Then, we stay a week in Egypt with our community, a group of 24 people, diving all together. We fly to Philippines a week later for a Chinese customer. After that, we stay in Indonesia for 3 weeks. Then we’re heading to cover the Sardines Run, making a film about this great adventure. Then back to Indonesia, Komodo National Park, as part of our community trip. Then, we work with the Tourism Agency of Papua New Guinea. We have a 7 weeks project there. Then, heading to French Polynesia with Guillaume Néry, one in October then in December. We might be in Norway for the orcas. Then, it will be Christmas and we have to prepare the Boat Show. This year, we gonna have a live studio over 9 days, interview people from the image community and broadcast it live on the internet. Then, April 2020, we have a nice project with a group of handicapped divers in the Bahamas. Our schedule is pretty much busy until June 2020!

Learn more about Behind the Mask on their website.

The post Behind the Mask with Florian Fischer appeared first on PANTHALASSA.

The sea can be a place of hope and dreams but also of despair and death.  Oscar-nominated director Skye Fitzgerald has created this powerful nine minute documentary for Sea-Watch about the dangerous plight facing refugees  attempting to cross the Mediterranean. 

At least six people still die every day fleeing across the Mediterranean. In 2018 alone, at least 2,277 people attempting to cross the sea were unable to reach dry land. As the work of civil sea rescue organisations is hampered, the proportion of deaths and missing persons in the Mediterranean has quadrupled since 2015. Alarmingly, 85 per cent of Germans are not even aware of the extent of this crisis, according to a YouGov survey commissioned by Sea-Watch.

Michael Schwickart of Sea-Watch explains: »When we started civil sea rescue in 2015, the mood in Germany was different. A few years later, the willingness to help and support has faded. But even in 2019, the Mediterranean remains the deadliest border in the world.”

Called Lifeboat – The Experiment, the film allowed 40 volunteers to experience a simulated Mediterranean crossing in a rubber dinghy, which was developed together with five refugees who had survived Mediterranean sea crossings and  told of their experiences and impressions. Based on the first hand accounts of these traumatic experiences, the simulation was designed to be as realistic as possible.

The result is a a film that caused the participants to re-evaluate their views of immigrants attempting dangerous sea crossings.

The support for this cause is still quite limited and the topic has not been at the centre of the news cycle recently. With Lifeboat – The Experiment, Sea-Watch intentionally chose a different way of creating attention and reigniting the conversation around the lives lost at sea on a daily basis.”

To find out more please do visit www.lifeboatexperiment.org

#refugeeswelcome

The post Sea Watch – The Experiment appeared first on PANTHALASSA.

Marine biologist, conservationist, freediver and entrepreneur Ocean Ramsey.

What it’s like to lock eyes with a great white as it slowly and directly approaches me is a feeling I’ve been fortunate to experience many times before but how’s the rough toothed dolphin escort too. I can’t say enough about the importance of sharks for healthy marine ecosystems, for the ocean, we need sharks and yet, perhaps because of the negative and inaccurate way they are portrayed in mass media many people do not care that they are being killed at a rate of 70,000,000-100,000,000 every year. What’s worse, they are killed mostly just for shark fin soup or for shark fishing as shark sport fishing. I would encourage you to see the cruelty and waste and compare it to this reality of peaceful and respectful coexistence. I do not encourage people to do this. I’ve been working with sharks for over 15 years, over 30 species including white sharks all around the world. They are apex predators not monsters nor puppies, but this was the gentlest grandma great white shark I’ve ever met. Deepest gratitude for my team and the incredible shot I will cherish forever 

We really need to all be working together. Put the egos aside and let’s work together to help save sharks for the next generation if not for ourselves.

Professional conservation photographer and shark photographer Juan Oliphant.

The first great white shark I ever swam with was in 2005 off my home Haleiwa with a similarly large great white shark who also rocked the boat I was on at the time working with sharks. I guess I am lucky that history repeats and not much has changed. What has changed though is shark populations are severely declining but for the first time ever I’ve seen this huge shift in perception in the last 5 years mostly due to imagery and the work that Ocean Ramsey and the team at One ocean diving and @oneoceandivingprogram and conservation and research division does.

In this shot, Ocean Ramsey is in the right place at the right time. The reality is that this moment took years or even decades to play out this way and I’m going to say it is due karma for Ocean. I spent the last decade trying to keep up her. Ocean is always working late into the night and getting up super early for work, writing papers for permits, shark research, conservation, leading dives, training safety divers, creating non profits, writing to senators and CEOs, doing educational out reach, organizing reef and beach clean ups, creating shark conservation designs and a clothing line all for shark conservation.

Ocean has dedicated her life to sharks and that is the biggest part of why I love her so much. She doesn’t do it for ego or fame, purely for love and hope that people can see that. She actually is a shy person that would rather keep to herself but the only reason she speaks up and gets in front of a camera is for them, the sharks. She learned early on after finishing her marine bio degree that there will be nothing left to study if we don’t speak up for these animals.

I hope my conservation images like this help people to question their perceptions and realize the beauty, and importance of sharks. I also hope that they inspire the kind of compassion and connection we need to have with nature and sharks, to help protect them and coexist along side them. You don’t have to love them but they do need to exist, they are absolutely critical for the health of marine ecosystems which all life relies on. Everyone has a part to play in shark and ocean conservation.

Education is the key. The only sad thing in all of this is to see other conservationist and scientists waste their valuable time attacking other scientists and conservationist. We really need to all be working together. Put the egos aside and let’s work together to help save sharks for the next generation if not for ourselves. Focus on the sharks and save them is what Ocean is about and I wish more people were like her. This amazing photo is not mine. The photo has been taken by @camgrantphotography, also in in the right place at the right time.

Photo: Cam Grant.

The post One picture, Two stories with Ocean Ramsey & Juan Oliphant appeared first on PANTHALASSA.

»This is how the ocean sees you« says in big the window of the oldest aquarium in Spain. Located right above the Atlantic ocean’s waters, at the foot of Monte Urgull, the historical San Sebastian’s aquarium houses more than 200 species such as turtles, tiger sharks, giant eels, sea stars and stingrays.

Panthalassa has recently been invited by the world-renowned aquarium to exhibit its Plastic Family  in order to celebrate the wealth of our oceans and invite people to protect it.

As a master piece of the place, a giant skeleton of a North Atlantic whale sits right in the entrance. Shells, small, big and colorful fish coexist. A wide range of sea life can been observed through a 360-degree underwater tunnel going right through one of the aquarium’s tank. Inaugurated in 1928, it’s much more than just an aquarium ans also plays the role of a maritime history museum. Through model ships and replicas, the museum share the illustrated history of the area’s maritime transport, rowing competitions and Basque whaling. 

Knowing our seas are the destination for more than 8 million tons of plastic per year, the aquarium have recently made a pledge to reduce the use of plastics especially in the souvenir shop. A decision able to reflect and echo our Plastic Family art initiative. As a mid-term project, they also promised to replace the plastic bottles with Tetra-Pak (cardboard boxes of drinking water).  That’s why all the Panthalassa society members are honored to see the Plastic Family being highlighted in the first floor window of the aquarium this winter.

The post Plastic Family sits at the San Sebastian Aquarium appeared first on PANTHALASSA.

»Swimming with these gentle giants« by photographer Travis Burke.

I held my breath and dove down toward the darkness. Deep below me I could see whale sharks emerging as they made their way near the surface feeding on plankton. As I turned around, I saw this scene with beautiful rays of light casting down through the water from the early morning sun. Peering through the lens, I snapped a couple photos before starting my ascent back to the surface. 

Dive Master and Marine Biologist Brinkley Davies shared her knowledge and passion for these sharks with me during our 15 hours day on the boat. These whale sharks lack natural predators, but in recent years they have been listed as an endangered species due to shark finning, and other anthropogenic pressures such as fishing operations and plastic pollution.

There is so much we still don’t know about these majestic creatures and it would be a shame to lose them forever. Little things like limiting our use of single use plastics, supporting sustainable tourism and saying no to shark fin soup will go a long way in protecting these and so many other animals that have been around for millions of years!

In a place where many people would easily resort to accepting more money to catch, kill and sell these animals fins, these fisherman have chosen to live in harmony with these animals.

 

»In the middle of the ocean far from anywhere« with Marine biologist, freediver and surfer Brinkley Davies

I have worked with whale sharks for the past few years at home in Australia, in both tourism, and research/conservation, on the Ningaloo Reef, a place that leads the way in whale shark tourism. Teaching people about their importance in our ecosystems and their struggle against extinction due to anthropogenic pressures such as overfishing, being targeted for their fins, and falling victim to plastic pollution. Before this trip I hadn’t seen a whale shark anywhere else, and have been intrigued to see how things were run elsewhere.

After steaming for 4 hours, we arrived at a small boat with winged platforms in the middle of the ocean far from anywhere. With very fine nets dropped into the water periodically around the full moon, a fisherman would live out here for a month, in a tiny wooden hut on the boat the size of a normal household toilet, and fish for the month. 

The whale sharks were attracted to the organic matter that was ground up and falling off the platform into the water, they swam around under this set up, filter feeding on whatever was around, and then diving. 

The Indonesians told me about how they call them the “ Star Sharks«. In a place where many people would easily resort to accepting more money to catch, kill and sell these animals fins, these fisherman have chosen to live in harmony with these animals, and let the odd few tourists who come by every once in a while, jump in and swim with them. 

There was around 7 whale sharks when we first jumped in, and we spent about 2 hours in the water with them. I was thrilled to see not one piece of plastic floating by during this time.

The post One picture, Two stories with Travis Burke & Brinkley Davies appeared first on PANTHALASSA.

The Plastic Family left their coastal landscape for a while and made the trip to the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium. Initiated by Surfrider Foundation Europe, the action day was meant to draw attention on the global crisis of plastic pollution. »The Plastic Family has been much appreciated by our volunteers and gave us a real visibility among passers by,« says Charléric Bailly, SFE event manager. »A real success for this event!«

The estimated 19 billion pounds of plastic that end up in the ocean every year are expected to double by 2025. »The clock is ticking and we call on the European Parliament to take action now!⁣« says the foundation. 

For the occasion, 80 Surfrider Foundation Europe volunteers present that day collected more than 7000 cigarette butts in Place Lux, Brussels, outside the European Parliament. They also created a giant bottle made out of plastic bottles to emphasize on the amount of plastic trash dumped into the sea everyday. »Every year, we organize an official gathering with our European volunteers during a weekend of exchanges and discussions. They’re what we wall the Chapters Days,« says Charléric. »This year, we were approximately 80 including volunteers and SFE staff members. In view of the next european elections scheduled to occur in 2019, we chose to meet in Brussels in order to question the european deputies.«

Today, more than 8 million tons of plastic are found in our oceans every year. Whether it has deliberately been dumped or lost by accident, human-created waste represents the majority of the marine pollution, also called marine debris or marine trash, affecting the health of wildlife and humans themselves. »That’s why te event consisted in meeting up on Luxembourg Square in front of the European Parliament, while exhibiting art installations made out of plastic trash. We are convinced that art is a powerful tool to seduce people toward an environmental cause,« explains Charléric. »We organized a cleanup of the square and collected more than 7,600 butts of cigarettes in just an hour.« 

According to the Container Recycling Institute, 100.7 billion plastic beverage bottles were sold in the U.S. in 2014, compared to 3.8 billion plastic water bottles sold in 1996. It means 315 bottles per person, 57% of those units were plastic water bottles. A threatening and terrible fact that we could avoid by slowing down our disposable lifestyle, refusing single-use plastics (plastic straws, plastic bag, plastic bottles, …) and using more sustainable containers.  

Today, we need to make global efforts to end plastic pollution. As mentioned by the Plastic Family, »we are the source but you can be part of the ocean.«  Follow their journey on Surfrider Foundation Europe.

Photos: Lucie Lucie Francini / Surfrider Foundation Europe

The Plastic Family has been made out of plastic trash found on the beaches of the Basque Country (Spain & France) by Panthalassa Society members Rebecca Kudela (Sea and Gather), Daniela Garreton and Panthalassa founder Sergio Penzo

The post The Plastic Family travels to the European Parliament appeared first on PANTHALASSA.

Born at the Blue Factory in San Sebastian, the Plastic Family made their way to the Côte des Basques in Biarritz. To celebrate World CleanUp Day, the colorful family of three visited the French beach town on September, 15.

Using the plastic found on the beaches of the Basque Country (Spain & France), Panthalassa decided to ‘dress’ the family in order to help raise awareness about the plastic problem the ocean is facing. 

Over the years, throughout the « Sea and Gather » initiative, Rebecca Kudela, a member of the Panthalassa Society, has been proving her obsession for beach-combing and her passion for design. Her work was a key inspiration for the idea of using art and creativity to encourage people to consume and use less single-use plastics. 

As part of a global environmental movement, the Plastic Family art installation will be travelling around Europe to save our ocean’s biggest threat. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to see the Plastic Family in Biarritz!

Stay tuned to find out where the family is heading next!

Photos: Rebecca Kudela

The post The ‘Plastic Family’ visits Biarritz, France appeared first on PANTHALASSA.

If you walk in the next few days through the beaches of San Sebastian’s »La Concha« or Biarritz you may come across a special family. A family of plastic created by Panthalassa that aims to make visible the great amount of waste that ends up in the sea every day. »If the sea could see us, it would see us as plastic beings. Our seas are the destination for more than 8 million tons of plastic per year. « This impressive figure was the one that inspired its founder and creative director, Sergio Penzo, to partner with Rebecca Kudela and create the installation »Plastic Family«.

Each family in Spain and France produces an average of 145 kilos of plastic waste per year. Much of it goes in to the ocean, the same ocean that these families enjoy during the summer on their beach vacations. Recognizing ourselves as the source of the problem is the first step in modifying our habits, that is why we have created a typical family that exposes this reality and confronts us with the plastic crisis, a reflection that today is essential. At Panthalassa we believe that art has the ability to attract attention, while at the same time sending a message that resonates and lasts over time.

»Plastic Family« was created with plastic waste collected on in the main beaches of the Spanish and French Basque country during the month of August. With them, we have »dressed« a family that during the last week of August and September will be exposed on the same beaches to raise awareness among passers-by of the great responsibility we have in our daily decisions on reducing, recycling and reusing. For example avoiding buying or using single-use plastics.

This project was conceived by Sergio Penzo and its development has been under the artistic direction of Rebecca Kudela, a Californian designer based in Biarritz. It has been encouraging to see how this project has motivated friends and family and even holiday makers who have spontaneously joined the plastic collection tasks. 

Currently the world produces 300 million tons of plastic waste every year. This is almost equivalent to the weight of the entire human population, and half of this plastic is designed to be used only once. This data is provided by the UN Environment Program (UNEP). Researchers estimate that more than 8.3 billion tons of plastic have been manufactured since the early 1950s. Of these, only 9% have been recycled, around 12% have been incinerated, and the remaining 79% has not been recycled. It has ended up in the environment (landfills, garbage dumps and oceans). In the next decade, our oceans will have about one kilo of plastic per three kilograms of fish. Through the so-called microplastics, small plastic particles up to 5 mm in diameter, which are ingested by fish, enter our food chain. If current trends continue, our oceans may contain more plastic than fish by 2050.

Panthalassa is a platform that brings together creators who love the sea and who have set themselves the task of creating and spreading stories that put a spotlight on the fragility and beauty of our oceans. “Plastic Family” is their first project since they opened the gallery and collaborative space ‘Blue Factory’ with headquarters in San Sebastian, last July.

More about our work: Panthalassa.tv

The post ‘Plastic Family’ Art made of Ocean Pollution appeared first on PANTHALASSA.

From May to September 2018, the city of Bruges is hosting the 2018 edition of the Triennial. Contemporary artists and architects from all over the world are brought together around one main topic, the liquid city. Many of them sought inspiration for their work in the role of liquidity in the city that is literally criss-crossed and surrounded by water.  »The world is changing rapidly. Some forms of life are under pressure,« says curator Michel Dewilde. »Fluidity is a symbol for change, for sociological change, political change and economic change.«

We’ve been amazed by the installation created by StudioKCA, a whale rising up from the Canal. Made up of 5 tons of plastic waste pulled out of the ocean, »Skyscraper is a physical example of why we need to change, how we use and dispose of plastic in the world today,« explain architects Jason Klimoski and Lesley Chang, co-founders of the innovative architecture and design agency StudioKCA.

Toilet seats, kids bowls, hangers … The artists collected all the plastic that they found in Hawaii, cleaned it and started to assemble it. »The whale is almost 4 stories tall and weights several tons. And there’s a tremendous mode of engineering that’s going to keep it stable.« We sat down with StudioKCA to learn more about their newest large-scale installation.

Hi guys, tell us a bit about the StudioKCA…

STUDIOKCA is an award-winning architecture and design firm led by Jason Klimoski and Lesley Chang. We’re based in Brooklyn, New York and have projects ranging in scale and complexity from lighting fixtures and interiors, to public installations, sculptures and buildings. The practice explores the ways in which context and locality offer opportunities to design and create objects and spaces that respond directly to the demands of their programs and site-specific environmental conditions. With each project, they are interested in how materials can be crafted or purposed to solve a problem, shape a narrative, create a sense of place, and offer a unique solution that resonates with visitors and clients.

From May to September 2018, the city of Bruges is hosting the Triennial. « The Liquid city » is the main topic of this year’s event. What about your process of creation?

When we first heard the term »liquid city«, we started thinking about the ocean (the first »liquid city«) and our city’s interaction with it, namely through waste.  This led us to find out that 8 million tons a year of plastic waste flow from our cities into this first liquid city, and that there is 150 million tons of plastic waste in the oceans right now. So, we decided to create a piece that would highlight this relationship and help to bring awareness to the issue of plastic waste in our oceans.

You ended up creating a gigantic whale rising up from the canal. Tell us more about your installation…

»Skyscraper«, or »the Bruges Whale«, is a 12 meters-tall whale made from 5 tons of plastic waste that we pulled out of the ocean. A whale, breaching the water is really the first skyscraper of the »liquid city« so it felt like the right form for our piece. Also, even though the whale is the biggest animal in the ocean, there is currently 150 million tons of plastic in our waters. That means, pound for pound, there is more plastic swimming in the ocean than there are whales, and we wanted to put the scale and scope of the problem into perspective.

You collaborated with the Hawaii Wild Fund, organizing major clean ups. Tell us a bit about these beachcombing sessions.

The HWF is a fantastic non-profit organization, and they became a great partner in our effort to collect Plastic Waste out of the ocean.  It takes about 2 hours of driving over lava rock to get to the coves littered with plastic waste from the great Pacific Garbage Patch. We worked with the HWF’s army of volunteers to fill up trucks and trailers full of waste to bring back to a container we kept in Hawaii.  In 6 short months, we had 5 tons of waste collected.  The sad part is, we could go out there for a day and clean a beach, and then go out there the very next day and find it covered, all over again.

Was it difficult to make this huge plastic whale stand up?

It is a very challenging structure. The foundation is underwater so we needed divers to make the connection to it and the main structure.  The whale is also tall, 12m, and cantilevers off of a 1.2m base. What makes this even more tricky, are two enormous fins that needed to be accounted for in order to make sure the whale doesn’t torque or twist.  We worked very closely with our engineering partners, Thornton Thomasetti to develop a cost-effective structural solution that is very safe and also straightforward to assemble on site (and underwater).

The architecture and design agency StudioKCA is used to create large-scale installations. Tell us a bit about your previous sculptures like ‘Head of Clouds’ and ‘Drop’.

We like creating large-scale installations.  We have created some fairly large pieces for the city of New York, NASA, the WSF, and now Bruges.  A couple of those have also sought to address the scope of plastic waste generated by us. Head in the Clouds, is a huge cloud shaped pavilion that was on Governors Island in New York City, made from 1 hour’s worth of plastic bottles thrown away in New York City- that’s 53,780 bottles!  Drop was an installation we created for the MADE event in Sao Paolo.  It looked like three drops of water, but was made from just 8 minutes worth of plastic bottles thrown away in Sao Paolo (more than 1,000 bottles a minute!)

What’s the message you’d like to spread regarding the problem of plastic pollution?

Plastic pollution is a problem we all have to address in our daily routines.  For just 1 day, keep track of everything you touch or use that is plastic.  Now consider reducing that by half, and making sure that the plastic you do use, goes into a recyling bin.  If we all do this, we might help stem the flow of the nearly 8 million tons of plastic waste that ends up in our oceans each year. 

How would you describe your relationship to the ocean today?

We love the ocean!  The oceans are something that make our planet unique in this galaxy, and what connects of all of us together. Clogging that unique aspect of our planet with waste from things we’ve simply thrown away seems irresponsible.  We work hard to call attention to global issues affecting our planet, and in the lives we lead to minimize our footprint on the earth and our oceans.

What’s next for you guys?

We are working now on finishing a 7m disc of stars for a small town in the Midwest (their place amongst the stars), and on a bike that has the potential to deliver off-the-grid power, water, light, and shade to areas that don’t have those ammenities.

Photos: Matthias Desmet 

Discover more creations from StudioKCA on their website.

The post The Bruges Whale project appeared first on PANTHALASSA.

Universal Music’s Mercury KX label recently unveiled their last musical project entitled ‘Keynvor’. Taking its name from the Cornish word for ‘ocean’, Keynvor is an ode to the Atlantic Ocean aimed at raising awareness of coastal issues.

»The first thing you say in the morning is ‘Dod you hear the sea last night«. These are the very first words of the peaceful and beautifully created video clip based on ambient oceanic sounds. Keynvor is the fruit of the collaboration between contemporary composer/multi-instrumentalist Sebastian Plano and Mercury KX. They tried to capture the sound of the ocean in order to bring plastic pollution to the forefront of people’s mind.

Combining the rhythmic sounds of the ocean with new field recordings collected throughout March 2018 by Argentina-born composer Sebastian Plano, the first track ‘Preservation’ is out now on all digital platforms. “I took the sound of waves hitting the rocks to create the beat and all the rhythmic elements of the piece are sounds of the ocean« said composer Plano. »The sea has so much power and I wanted to convey this in my music.”

The funds of this first album will be donated to the national marine conservation and campaigning charity Surfers Against Sewage which will help to raise funds for the growing threat of plastic pollution. »Our oceans are in peril, facing unprecedented challenges including the growing threat of plastic pollution. Together we can respond to this oceanic siren. The future is clean. The future is blue« explained Hugo Tagholm, Chief Executive at Surfers Against Sewage. Through the sounds of Cornish waves crashing on the rocks, this album will help the charity to continue its vital work in protecting Cornish beaches.

»If we don’t take action now, we’re only gonna see the accumulation of the problems we’re already starting to notice« said marine bioligist Dr Kelly Haynes. »We’re starting to see prevalence of plastic particules in guts and testing of fish.« According to James Nicholls from Sharps’s brewery based in Cornwall, the community is deeply  committed to saving their unique and spectacular coastal region.

»We are surfers and ocean lovers, it’s heart breaking to watch the water and the beaches that we love being slowly destroyed. Here in Cornwall, the ocean absolutely surrounds us, it inspires us, it shapes the way you breathe. It’s such critical to protect that for the future.The Keynvor project is built around, inspired by and intrinsically linked to the coast – what better way to save our beaches than recruit the ocean itself. »

The post “Keynvor”: The sound of the Atlantic Ocean appeared first on PANTHALASSA.