A Load of Rubbish: Art, Police and Pollution in London

Videos

Mark McGowan's Rubbish

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sourced by Jordan Yerman

Photos

Mark McGowan and the River Thames

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uploaded by Jordan Yerman

London-based artist Mark McGowan was stopped by a small army of police as he tried to dump a vanload of plastic into the Thames. Had he succeeded, McGowan would have been highlighting an action taking place around the clock, all over the world: manmade pollutants dumped into waterways for the sake of convenience.

However, police and officers from the Environment Agency arrived to prevent Mark from carrying out his demonstration. The artist made no attempt to fight with the officers, since the illegality of his proposed action was part of the whole idea.

What interested me about the whole thing is that the prevention of McGowan's statement raised an even more pointed question than had he succeeded: the environmental officials were unable to answer McGowan's inquiries about how the river can be so full of trash and yet he is the only one stopped-- it's like pulling over the slowest of speeding cars, simply because it's easier to stop. I suppose that the police realized that the guy who ate a Welsh Corgi to protest fox hunting would make good on a promise to drop plastic into a river...

(I was alerted to McGowan's project via Facebook) 

Until the video becomes searchable on Youtube, the direct link is right here.