Looking at these innovative images, it may seem as though UK photographer,Mandy Barker took cues from the I Spy children’s book series. However, a closer look reveals an intelligent stance on raising awareness about ocean debris. Even while reading this, the massive mound of trash, known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is floating around in the north Pacific Ocean. As sometimes imagined, it is not entirely a solid mass, but a marine soup whose main ingredient is floating plastic debris. Drawing inspiration from the environmental disaster, Barker created Soup, a photography series capturing trash salvaged from beaches all over the world.

There is everything from discarded sporting equipment, fishing line, toothpaste tubes, and even debris that has been half eaten and digested by marine life. Barker says the striking and contradictory assembly of items is intentional and “aim[s] to engage with, and stimulate an emotional response in the viewer by combining a contradiction between initial aesthetic attraction and social awareness.” And, the space-like black background represent the disturbing amounts of trash having no boundary.

Photographer, Mandy Barker hopes to create a visceral yet thoughtful response to her series, as well as make a statement on how the human relationship to plastic is destroying our oceans.

Mandy Barker