La Mode Verte
Environmental Awareness Through Media ProductionsArchive for Forks
LMV Returns to California
After a very productive trip to Washington state, we have made it back down to California and have stopped off one last time before we travel to Long Beach for Algalita’s International Youth Summit. Following Ocean Shores Beach Combers Fair, we drove up to a town called Forks (now widely known for its appearance in the Twilight books) to interview John Anderson. John is one of the world’s most extensive collectors of marine debris and has created a brilliant museum space within the parameters of his home. In the front yard stands a 35 foot sculpture made of discarded plastic fishing float and topped with a 4 foot wide metal buoy (this used to be plastic but it was eventually replaced with the current metal specimen after locals took to shooting it from the nearby road). Around the base, thousands of other plastic floats lie in a 20 foot square garden box. As well as this huge statue, the ‘flower’ beds around the house contain a selection of glass fishing floats (much like those we saw in the Beach Combers Fair) and metal fishing debris including anchors, boat chains, and buoys. John’s workshop (he works as a plumber) has been overrun by the creation of a indoor museum space divided into wood, lighters, shoes (including Nikes from the infamous container spill in the 90s), military flares, signs, space shuttle parts, and sake bottles.
The following day (yesterday) we left the coast and headed inland to Seattle where we met Chris Jordan at his home. Chris was one of the first to make images of plastic-ridden albatross chick corpses public. He is now being put forward for an award in Paris and for that reason we had to keep our meeting short. He kindly accepted an interview with us on LMV’s next trip to the USA in the Summer.
