Wednesday we walked and walked and eventually we went to Shedd Aquarium. Aquariums (Aquaria?) have a tough gig when Australians and Kenyans who’ve dived The Reef turn up, and yep, we were a tough audience in the Shedd. The place was crowded with otherwise happy folk, which possibly shows that we don’t know what we’re talking about. But there we were, and somewhat sullen (academic concentration V said), we will have featured in the background of many people’s holiday snaps. We all know I’m not good around hoards of children. In front of some particularly horrid looking eels I had a desire for Harry Potter to arrive and make the glass disappear so they could slide to freedom (and certain death out of the water I know, but I wanted them to be FREE). And I know that Beluga whales are endangered in the wild, but I really felt sad for the female who had been there for 27 years. The less said the better about how we felt when we saw a Dolphin staring over the edge of the infinity pool at the lake so close but so far away.
There was however an art exhibition on around the aquarium that excited our environmental sensibilities. The See Art to Save the Sea exhibition featured marine life made from items that have been salvaged from the sea. I’m often a cynic and I did wonder how the colors could be so clear and the pieces so pristine when they’d been flotsam with someone’s jetsam for so long, but I’m ready to believe the website that says that over 20 tons of trash have been collected from Oregon beaches and made into 70 works of art. Brilliant premise – force people to see an immediate connection between sea creatures and trash (sorry, rubbish). Love it: create art that evokes ocean creatures using the medium of the very rubbish that is making the marine environment uninhabitable for such creatures. Inspired concept and it’s cleaning beaches. Anyway, we walked the full aquarium looking for the art, (wishing it had been better curated so that the purple fish above wasn’t hidden behind a bar selling wine in plastic cups) and otherwise trying to avoid children and the entrapped animal life.
The exhibits just stood there, signage understated. You could assume they had no voice and thoughtlessly disregard them as untidy decorations, but there they stood nonetheless, wordlessly declaring the reckless abuse of this planet by human thoughtlessness. They were the most important things in the building.
I love the idea of making jellyfish that stick and cling and scare and sting humans, out of the plastics that humans recklessly discard and which then strangle so much marine life.
Grumpy Nemo is very angry about plastic water bottles – be Grumpy Nemo and don’t buy plastic bottles.
Wendy's Out of Station 