Rio was commissioned by ScrapAntics to create a whale sculpture from recycled materials as part of the United Nations Climate Change Conference which was held in Glasgow, November 2021.
The project involved local schools in the creation of the jellyfish (from plastic waste). Moby and his jellyfish swarm was used as a visual prompt to demonstrate how young people can be part of the solution, taking responsibility for their environment and showing how we can all be proactive in helping our sea life.
Whales have a very strong connection with Dundee both through the city’s whaling history and the Tay whale, which was stranded locally and whose skeleton is on display in the McManus Gallery. COP26 focused upon humanities’ impact on nature and this project was created as a sculptural representation of the plastic impact, particularly the use of plastic bags. Whales can mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and ingest them, which can result in their early demise.
With the Help of Katie New We ran various workshops with primary 6 and 7 students from four local schools over the summer, helping the children up-cycle the plastics they collected into accompanying jellyfish and embellishments for the whale, which is over 10 feet in size and created entirely from recycled materials. The Children were also invited to take part in local beach clean ups alongside Plastic Free Broughty Ferry, raising an awareness of what we can all do in our spare time to help our environment.