View the exhibition page for Chris Jordan: Midway.

Chris Jordan’s photographs depict the magnitude of our consumerism and its impact on our environment. His work sends a bold message about unconscious behaviors in our everyday lives, providing a platform for rich conversation and education around issues of ocean health, ecosystem interconnectedness, mass consumption and plastic consumption. The exhibition will present a number of photographs featuring his body of work entitled Midway. On Midway Atoll, a remote cluster of islands more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent, the detritus of our mass consumption surfaces in an astonishing place: inside the stomachs of countless dead baby albatrosses. The nesting chicks are fed lethal quantities of plastic by their parents, who mistake the floating trash for food as they forage over the vast polluted Pacific Ocean. His feature length film about this subject will also be shown as part of the public programming for this exhibition. 

This exhibition will also be the public debut of Jordan’s newest photographic series Olympic, in which he uses high-resolution digital photography to convey the vast sublime of the world’s oceans. With these images juxtaposed with his Midway prints, it reinforces the idea that society’s waste problems can affect an ecosystem so far removed from where we live.

Learn more about Chris Jordan: www.chrisjordan.com

View the exhibition page for Aurora Robson: The Tide is High.

The Halsey Institute presents a new body of work and site-specific installation by NY-based sculptor Aurora Robson. As an artist who explores ecological issues, she creates lively and intricate sculptures from plastic debris, transforming quotidian waste into aesthetic objects of beauty and reflection. Under her meticulous manipulation, the plastic materials she uses in her works take on an organic quality, thus connecting back to nature.  Many of her works take on forms that resemble the otherworldly organisms that exist on ocean floors; in this way, her work is further associated with the sea, which is often the ultimate repository for plastic waste. Her works reference a legacy of using found objects as media for sculpture, and by transforming everyday trash into works of art, her sculpture forces viewers to consider their own relationship with plastic materials and waste.

For her presentation at the Halsey Institute, she will create a large site-specific installation using plastic debris welded into new forms.

Find out more about Aurora Robson: www.aurorarobson.com

Co-presented with South Carolina Aquarium

Individuals
Deborah A. Chalsty
Paula R. Feldman
Pearlstine Family Fund
Karen and John Vournakis
Tom and Kathleen Wright

Organizations
Coastal Conservation League
Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelly Foundation

College of Charleston
Office of the President
Office of Academic Affairs
Office of Sustainability
First Year Experience
Quality Enhancement Plan
School of Sciences and Mathematics
School of the Arts
Division of Marketing and Communications
Geography Program

In addition to the South Carolina Aquarium, and the College of Charleston’s Office of Sustainability and Quality Enhancement Plan, the following is a list of some of the local organization that actively work to preserve Charleston’s environment, including preventing the spread of plastics in our waterways.

CHARLESTON CHAPTER OF THE SURFRIDER FOUNDATION

The Charleston Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation is a local, grassroots, volunteer-run nonprofit that works to keep the Lowcountry beaches and waterways clean and pristine. This is accomplished through a variety of conservation programs and campaigns including litter sweeps, advocacy, environmental programs, and data collection. Since its inception in 2000, the Charleston Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation has held more than 200 litter sweeps, removing hundreds of pounds of trash from our environment, fought against plans that were detrimental to the environment, and battled for the right to public beach access. Additionally, our team of volunteers has brought to fruition programs meant to create a healthier environment such as the Ocean Friendly Garden program, and the Ocean Friendly Restaurant Program. Since we are a volunteer organization, we are always looking for community members interested in making a difference.

Website: Charleston.Surfrider.org · Facebook.com/CharlestonSurfrider
Contact: chair@charleston.surfrider.org

CHARLESTON WATERKEEPER

Charleston Waterkeeper’s mission is to protect and restore Charleston’s waterways for our community and for future generations. We do this through a mix of boots-on-the-water programs and data-driven advocacy campaigns designed to protect the public’s fundamental right to clean, healthy waterways. Our vision is a Charleston where all local waterways and the marine life they support are healthy and fully protected by an engaged community of waterway stewards.

Website: CharlestonWaterkeeper.org

Contact: info@charlestonwaterkeeper.org · (843) 607-3390

CITY OF CHARLESTON DEPARTMENT OF PARKS KEEP CHARLESTON BEAUTIFUL

Keep Charleston Beautiful (KCB) is an affiliate of Keep America Beautiful and PalmettoPride, and
therefore works with other national and state organizations to promote a clean and beautiful environment for all Americans. KCB is also a division of the City of Charleston Department of Parks and is dedicated to promoting the cleanliness and beautification of the City of Charleston through education, public awareness, and community involvement.

KCB’s school-based education programs focus on teaching Charleston’s youth to live litter-free lives
while encouraging environmental awareness and volunteerism. In addition to what is considered normal litter, KCB has targeted two prominent, yet often ignored, forms of litter with its Pick Up After Your Pet Program and My City Is NOT Your Ashtray Program. Keep Charleston Beautiful works year-round with groups of any size to clean up local parks, marshes, or urban settings. Cleanup events average 2 hours and all supplies are provided.

Website: Facebook.com/KCBSC

Contact: Jamie Gillette · GilletteJ@charleston-sc.gov · (843) 579-7501

COASTAL CONSERVATION LEAGUE

Since 1989, the Coastal Conservation League (CCL) has worked with communities, businesses, citizen groups, and people like you to protect what we love about South Carolina.

From sandy beaches, healthy marshes, freshwater swamps to pine savannas, they protect natural habitats and the wildlife that depends on them. CCL supports the communities they live in by ensuring we have clean air to breathe, fresh water to drink, and sustainable energy to power our homes and places of work. Most of all, they strive to ensure that future generations will be able to enjoy the same spaces and quality of life here that we do today.

This future includes smart, sustainable, economic growth that maximizes the potential of our community. This future ensures the availability of natural resources and opportunity for our children to enjoy those resources. This future has good policies and protection in place so we do more than fight an endless series of battles against an endless series of threats.

Our vision is a future in which we strive for common ground and the balance of nature and community.

Website: CoastalConservationLeague.org
Contact: info@scccl.org · (843) 732-8035

CONSERVATION VOTERS OF SOUTH CAROLINA

Conservation Voters of South Carolina (CVSC) advocates for our air, water, land, and energy through political action. We are bipartisan and pragmatic. CVSC holds South Carolina legislators accountable for their conservation votes and actions. Check out our website, especially our Take Action area where you can contact your legislators. With your help, CVSC will protect the South Carolina you love.

Website: cvsc.org/action
Contact: (803) 799-0716

5 GYRES INSTITUTE

5 Gyres empowers action against the global health crisis of plastic pollution through science, art, education, and adventure. Beginning in 2010, 5 Gyres spearheaded a series of scientific firsts by researching plastic in all five subtropical gyres, as well as the Great Lakes and Antarctica—sailing a total of 50,000 miles
in the process. In 2014, the organization convened eight scientists around the world to publish the first global estimate of plastic pollution in our ocean: 5.25 trillion particles weighing in at 270,000 tons of “plastic smog” worldwide. 5 Gyres works on plastic microbead pollution in the Great Lakes that inspired a two-year campaign that culminated in a federal ban on microbeads, which President Obama signed into law in 2015.

Website: 5gyres.org 
facebook.com/5gyres/
Contact: info@5gyres.org · (310) 428-9045

FRIENDS OF COASTAL SOUTH CAROLINA

Dedicated to preserving the ecosystems and wildlife of the South Carolina coast for future generations; Friends of Coastal South Carolina supports Waccamaw, Cape Romain and E.F. Hollings ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuges, and the Francis Marion National Forest. Their work includes providing science learning and environmental stewardship programs to thousands of kids along the South Carolina coast each year, supporting species and habitat management projects on our refuges and forests and most importantly, engaging citizens in stewardship of these critical resources. Our coastal forest and wildlife refuges are as important to people as they are to wildlife. In addition to providing amazing opportunities for recreation they are critical to protecting our air and water quality.

Website: SCCoastalFriends.org ·
Facebook.com/SCCoastalFriends
Contact: info@SCCoastalFriends.org · (843) 697-7535

SOUTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL

Each year, tens of thousands of pounds of trash is collected from South Carolina’s beaches. Much of this debris is plastic originating from recreational use of the beach and coastal waters. Through the Adopt-A-Beach Program, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control engages the power of concerned residents and visitors to collect and document debris and help protect the fragile beach environment. Volunteers use DHEC’s free MyCoast mobile app to report clean-up data directly to coastal managers, who then analyze the results and develop targeted educational and prevention efforts.

Website: mycoast.org/sc
SCDHEC.gov/HomeAndEnvironment/Water/CoastalManagement/
Contact: Liz Hartje · hartjeen@dhec.sc.gov · (843) 953-9237

SOUTHERN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW CENTER

The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) uses the power of the law to champion the environment of the Southeast. Our team of more than 70 dedicated attorneys stands up for all the things you love about this special region—clean water, healthy air, mountains, forests, and the coast. SELC believes that everyone in this region deserves to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live in a healthy environment. This nonprofit organization gets consistently impressive results because they know how to work effectively in all three branches of government—and at the national, regional, state, and local levels—to create, strengthen, and enforce the laws and policies that determine the beauty and health of our environment. They work to prevent and stop environmental abuses through our offices in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and right here in Charleston, South Carolina.

Website: SouthernEnvironment.org/About-SELC
/ 
Contact: (843) 720-5270