Endless: Economise of Scale, 2013. Found ocean microplastic and plastic from Alaska, Greece, Hawaii, Costa Rica, Italy, and the Gulf of Mexico, Hydrocarbons, and steel, 13 x 213 x 15 in.

Terrible Beauty: A Conversation with Pam Longobardi

In 2006, Pam Longobardi visited Hawaii’s South Point and discovered her life mission. Instead of finding an idyllic paradise on the remote beach, she was walloped by an overwhelming amount of marine debris. Since then, she has worked with cast-off plastic as her primary material, creating aesthetic arrangements with detritus that she has recovered from beaches and ocean currents across the world. Her sculptural installations and public artworks draw attention to human consumption, waste, and the effects of natural forces. An Atlanta-based artist and professor of art at Georgia State University, Longobardi won the $50,000 Hudgens Prize in 2013, given by the Hudgens Center for the Arts in Duluth, Georgia. She has had more than 40 solo exhibitions, including shows in Greece, Italy, China, Japan, Poland, and Finland. She is the creator of the Drifters Project, an ongoing collaborative and interdisciplinary …see the entire article in the print version of April’s Sculpture magazine.