What am I up to: Fruitmarket Fair V

Preparing for this artists book fair, I thought of all the projects that I have done and would like to make into books, many of them I haven't got around to. Though some books I didn't expect to appear, 'Shoal' is one of them.
I have always beach combed, as a child, I was obsessed with collecting shells and dreamed of opening a shell museum. In the last few years, I would collect 'treasure' but I grew more and more aware of the increasing levels of 'trash', and so started gathering my treasure and balancing it with trash removal. The balance has gone now, I only collect trash and I cannot possibly collect it all, fabric and shoes that once would have rotted are now man-made fibers that do not decompose.

Plastic has replaced paper in items like ear buds and so the tiny plastic sticks litter everywhere. Wet wipes and disposable cleaning wipes abound, in a great gray mass that strangles the flora of the sea and helps to rip it from its holdfasts. I started to take this litter home by the sack full and photograph it and then working on these images in photoshop to convert them into 'fish'.
I then used these images for a self-made campaign called 'Plenty More Fish In The Sea' which I linked sometimes to Martin Dorey's #2minutebeachclean. Now I have created a hand-made book called 'Shoal' from some of the images. It is a great way to pull things together and is fun to see them in a book form.

Please if you live near the sea or ocean, join the #2minutebeachclean we have made a mess, it's time to clean it up.

Images top to bottom: Cover featuring Tampax dispenser., fishing line, and a rubber glove. Childs sock with polyester and lycra, Nylon netting sacks and finally a foam ear plug.