Ghost Gears
Despite fishing nets being great for their fishing function, the tool and materials used, are dangerous to the ecosystem when they are left behind or lost in the water. In such cases, stray or lost nets create piles and lumps of nets drawn to the seabed. Depending on the location, this could create a home for some organisms or create a threat to others.
Between land and sea, the tools become suspended in space and time. Sediments focus on the ghost gears as the main material that holds stories not only through their lifetime, but also when they get lost. These piles of nets serve as a record, to showcase the time they have been lost for, the span, height and length they have occupied in the seabed from a woven transparent light net to heavy piles left and aged in the sea. Inspected, gathered, collected, lifted, pulled out, untangled, cleaned, cut, piled again, and then compressed, the piece aims to re-imagine the seabeds, to rebuild the coastlines.
These organised compressed piled structures slabs, formed in a simple unit to create a linear structure, allowing conversation on ecology, environment, common space, and social aspect to exist.
Making process
Inspected, gathered, collected, lifted, pulled out, untangled, cleaned, cut, piled again, and then through a compression moulding process to create slabs of these recycled sediments.
Text submitted by the maker and edited by the Future Materials Bank. For information about reproducing (a part of) this text, please contact the maker.
Ingredients
Collected fishing rope, fishing cage rope which is made of cotton and nylon, recycled rubber grain
Credits
Dubai Voluntary Diving Group, Captain Abdulla Muhsen, Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation