JGM Gallery is exhibiting Incoming Tide at its Battersea space. The work, created by Australia's Ghost Net Collective, features sculptures woven from the mesh of recycled fishing nets.
Incoming Tide follows the success of Caught In The Net (2019), JGM Gallery's first exhibition in partnership with Erub Arts. Erub Arts are a founding member of the Ghost Net Collective and based on one of the hundreds of islands in the Torres Strait, stretching from Australia towards Papua New Guinea.
Discarded and abandoned fishing nets, or 'Ghost Nets', are among the most harmful types of plastic in the sea. Each year nets weighing five to ten times that of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (500,000 - 1,000,000 tons) are discarded to drift aimlessly in the world's oceans, where they strangle sea mammals, damage coral reefs and kill fish (source: World Wildlife Fund).
Regarding the exhibition, Jennifer Guerrini-Maraldi, Director of JGM Gallery, says: "The artists have meshed traditional Aboriginal stories from their seafaring heritage together with their concerns for the environment. They have used art to help understand and make sense of the world - our world - and what is happening to the oceans."
The Ghost Net Collective was officially founded in 2020 and includes artists from Australia's Queensland coast, as well as from the Torres Strait Islands. The proximity of these areas to the Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest living organism, makes this issue particularly pertinent to the group's members.
The Collective is renowned for making large outdoor installations, as well as smaller-scale works. Their pieces are found in private and public art collections around the world, including in Sydney's National Maritime Museum.
It should be noted that not all the artists are First Nations Australians. "The threat to our oceans is one that concerns the whole planet", says Maraldi. "The use of universal sea symbols, from the shark to the jellyfish, and the shoals of sardines, connects people from along the Australian coastline, as well as from around the world."
Ghost Net Collective Press Release
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