artist hannah tofts

apollo bay, victoria, australia 1982

collecting plastic marine litter on west coast Scotland… to west and east coast Australia

SAY NO TO A PLASTIC SEA! I’m passionate about ZERO plastic trash in our waters, unnecessary plastic packaging, tap water not plastic bottled water, plastic recycling, how long plastic takes to biodegrade if at all, responsible packaging design, teaching our kids for a zero tolerance plastic-waste legacy. I make to shout about it to get your attention. I create visual impact to show people in cities it matters. I want to get corporates involved to help get me out there to show you so you can’t ignore it. I’m an Artist/Designer, now an Accidental Eco Participator. I can’t ignore us killing our blue planet.

Why? How? Where? I’m curious: always looking and collecting, drawing, making and responding to the ordinary and odd, wherever I live and travel. It’s my visual language. New horizons inspire; I moved from a European city to a Scottish West coast. I’d always dreamed of living by the sea. I landed at the head of a Loch on a 500m beach. I found masses of plastic dirty rubbish washed up every day: it was shocking. I started collecting and documenting, involving our local Beach Cleans, my studio’s full 7 years on. I started making. My plastic sea trash creations grew. It got funny for something terrible. I put on exhibitions, events, wrote, designed and self-published a 660 page Creative Document, taught school kids and communities. I wanted to creatively map our UK coastline, to show the urban cities. I called the project Plastic Sea. It’s a serious subject I highlighted with creative play, to make it hard to ignore.

Australia trip changed my life again. Hadn’t seen my dad for years, got to hang out with him on the Central Coast beaches; rediscovered what hot beach living is. I love the big ocean, happy on warm sand, watching surfers love their ocean too. Again, it’s funny what you find… tiny plastic marine litter, ground by surf and sand to micro which will never disappear. I brought back 7 kilos. Different to the big scruffy stuff we get up in the stormy north; I’d have to re-think my creative response for those in the southern hot hemisphere. I’d forgotten the beach is such a part of family living; about happy, sunny, fun, healthy and play… let’s go to the beach?

Hannah Tofts MA RCA, passionate creative. Dad gave me the name: Let’s go to the beach… Thank you x

Hannah loves hot beaches, sunshine, happy colours, big oceans, soft sands, warm skin, salty hair, surf cafes, splashing in clear water blues…