'plastique plague' by the pearl report

the pearl report has done a documentary about people who take action against plastic pollution in hongkong. please follow this link to watch (it's in english this time:)
http://mytv.tvb.com/news/pearlreport/171826#page-1

tracey read, founder of plasticfreeseas.org is the one person in hongkong who follows up the case of plastic pollution with perseverance, enthusiasm and solutions. my deepest respect for your activism, tracey! as you say 'if we don't change our behaviour, we will be cleaning up beaches forever!'  another ngo featured is livinglamma.org with their amazingly efficient campaign 'brand on the beach'. this campaign registers products that make up most of marine pollution and then targets the companies responsible for these products. and starting from 12:00mins there's me, showing a global problem from the artistic angle, showing waste as something valuable ... enough said now, please watch yourself!

the second that changes everything

detail of chinese landscape / 垃圾山水 No.8 (2014) 

a friend asked me the other day if I was 'lab sab po', a 'trash lady'. it made me laugh. but actually this is a serious question and the offensiveness of the term shows our lack of appreciation for waste. waste is not waste; we declare it to be 'waste' 'rubbish' 'trash'. but it is still what it is: a plastic bottle, a broken branch, a paper cup... the moment the plastic bottle slips out of my hand, its terminology changes from a desirable, advertised, prized object to something apprehended as useless and worthless. from something convenient, nice, something we might even identify with, to something disgusting, repulsive, untouchable. in this split second the perception of this object completely changes. the bottle is still the bottle. but the value we give it has shifted. what are we thinking? are we thinking? i don't get my head around this...

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