Regan Rosburg

In 2019, my art project while aboard the Tallship Antigua was to document plastic that had made its way via northern ocean currents. It was not uncommon for me to suddenly feel one of my comrades gently place a piece of found plastic into my pocket. Over the two weeks at sea, whenever we made landfall, we gathered what we found — from small bits to large ghost nets. Eventually, we amassed eight huge bags of garbage, including an old television set. One of our last days at sea, I dragged the garbage onto land, piled it up, and documented it.

Upon returning to the ship, I separated out the blue and green plastic, washed it, and shipped it back to the United States. It eventually became part of an installation, “Everything is Fine” that was exhibited at RedLine Contemporary Art Center as part of “Near in the Distance,” curated by Nicole Caruth (2020).

In the words of a Mi’kmaq elder, we need “two eyes, seeing.”