Plasticity
Ernest Goh, Singapore
Ayer Ayer, translated as water in the Malay language, is an ecologically-engaged art project, which features four components, one of which is a photograph series, Plasticity, which allows viewers to get up close with microplastics.
While working on an art residency commissioned by Exactly Foundation, I found a startling amount of microplastics along Punggol Beach, Singapore. Plastic microfibers are ingested by fishes, and microplastics have been found in human stool samples, suggesting its widespread presence in the food chain.
To bring awareness to this phenomenon happening on our very shores, I created a photography series which zooms in on the epic scale of plastic pollution via extreme close-up images of microplastic fragments, some just 2mm in size. Viewers can expect to understand microplastics more intimately through these magnified images, proving that the problem is as present in Singapore as it is elsewhere in the world. Plasticity hopes to educate the public and provoke them to consider their own relationship to plastic, and the role they play in contributing to plastic pollution in the world’s oceans.
Find out more about Ayer Ayer Project: http://www.ayerayer.com/
Microplastic Bit #1, collected from Punggol Beach, size: 2mm
© Ernest Goh, in residency with Exactly Foundation, November 2018
Plastic Fragment, collected from Punggol Beach, size: 12mm
© Ernest Goh, in residency with Exactly Foundation, November 2018
Microplastic Bit #5, collected from Punggol Beach, size: 1.5mm
© Ernest Goh, in residency with Exactly Foundation, November 2018
Microplastic Bit #7, collected from Punggol Beach, size: 2mm
© Ernest Goh, in residency with Exactly Foundation, November 2018
Microplastic Bit #8, collected from Punggol Beach, size: 2mm
© Ernest Goh, in residency with Exactly Foundation, November 2018
Ernest Goh is the founder of Ayer Ayer, an ecologically-engaged art project that creates at the intersection of art and science. His work has been commissioned by and installed at the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, Singapore, collected by the Multimedia Art Museum Moscow, and also resides in corporate, public and private collections.
