Inverness Eden Court artshow shows the problem of plastic on Scotland's beaches
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A new art show in Inverness hopes to highlight the problem of plastic on the shores of Scotland.
Highland based artist Julia Barton's latest installation at Eden Court shows the scale of the problem with non-recycled goods turning up in the sea.
As well as being visually stimulating, she said she hopes the gallery will change perceptions about ocean littering.
She started the Littoral Art Project in 2013 after being shocked by the amount of litter found on beaches around the Highlands of Scotland.
Speaking to the Inverness Courier, Julia said: "This project is a culmination of about four years work and actually I thought how can I show the connection between marine plastic litter - which I've been working with for years - and the climate crisis.
"Because obviously the two are linked but people don't always see that. And to do with single use plastic and plastic waste.
"I thought if I worked with different communities to collect the litter from beaches. Each type of litter of has a different type of plastic."
The cubes Julia has formed as the central part of the installation show the varied waste washed up on our beaches on a regular basis.
From Ullapool, to Lochinver, to Shetland, and to Dunbar and Eyemouth, she has has been all over to collect samples of plastic to form the central cube like sculptures.
She said: "Each one is a cube that has been threaded together by members of the public to begin with.
"The idea was if we bring this together we can talk about the different types - the making and doing of this is the absolute best place to have conversations about climate change, about the emergency and the amount of plastic we are producing."
Asked what she hopes to achieve, Julia said: "The connection to climate change and the fact we need to use less materials.
"We are using up fossil fuels at a rate of knots.
"I think what I would like people to get is that this [cube of plastic] has an energy value that we can calculate - if this is lost in the sea or put in landfill then we have lost that amount of oil.
"At some point in the future we may be able to reclaim it - but at the moment we don't reclaim very much.
"It is about loss - the lost energy.
"Hence the title."
LOST - runs from May 15 to June 12 in Eden Court Chapel.
