Plastic and the Ocean

Text and Photos: Class 7a of the Prignitz-school in Berlin

The sad reality and our hope for the oceans

We, the pupils of the Prignitz School in Berlin, had the opportunity to realise our graffiti project before the summer holidays after all. We had almost given up hope ...

In spring, we got the chance to take part in an "electricity box styling" project. We were very happy about it and immediately started researching. We chose "Animals in the Sea" as our theme. During our search for pictures, we always ended up with topics that we had already discussed in class:

We started with a documentary about Greta Thunberg, then we focused on sustainability, waste and waste separation, recycling and the ecological footprint. We also regularly watched the news, in which climate change and its effects were discussed.

Because an electricity box has two sides, we had the following idea: on one side we wanted to spray a picture of how we imagine idyllic life in the sea, on the other side the sad reality, e.g. a whale caught in a fishing net and swimming through plastic.

Unfortunately, the association that carries out the electricity box styling did not want us to spray a political message. Only pictures were allowed that would make all the people walking by happy.

A critical painting and thus our political message were important to us!

We have therefore cancelled the project because

• we want to show people that life in the oceans is not as wonderful as they might think.
• we want people to realise that the oceans are threatened, that animals will become extinct - and that we will eventually become extinct too.
• it is unfair towards the animals - after all, they were here before us.
• we wanted to show the contrast between reality and idyllic imagination.

Shortly before the summer holidays, we had the opportunity to realise our graffiti project and draw attention to the plastic waste problem in our oceans. Our school provided us with two walls facing each other in the schoolyard and Hendrik auf der Heidt from Urban Artists, supported us very well with the implementation. He let us work freely and completely without templates. We are very happy with our result!

We are all the more pleased that firmm , who originally supported us in our search for pictures that require no licence, now gives us the opportunity to present our project on their homepage and thus reach more people.

Many thanks for that!

Class 7a from the Prignitz School