Additional information
by Mandy Barker (Author)
'In 2012, I found a piece of material in a rock pool that changed my life. Mistaking this moving piece of cloth for seaweed, started the recovery of synthetic clothing from around the coastline of Britain for the next ten years.' Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections is a typology of discarded clothing fragments found around the coast of the UK. A homage to the work of pioneering botanist and photographer Anna Atkins (1799-1871)--the unique cyanotype images in the book mimic different species of marine algae found in waters around Great Britain. Through the creation of this work, photographic artist Mandy Barker hopes to raise awareness of fast fashion, synthetic clothes, and the harmful effect of microfibres in the oceans.
Author Biography
Mandy Barker is a photographic artist whose work involving marine plastic debris for more than 14 years, has received global recognition. Her work has been published internationally by outlets and organisations including National Geographic, TIME, The Guardian, Financial Times, Smithsonian, New Scientist, The Explorer's Journal, UNESCO, British Journal of Photography, VOGUE, and the World Wildlife Fund. Her work has been exhibited world-wide including at MoMA and the United Nations headquarters, New York: V&A Museum, London, and the Science & Technology Park, Hong Kong. Barker was shortlisted for the Prix Pictet Award SPACE (2017), nominated for the Magnum Foundation Fund, LOBA Award, and the Deutsche Börse Foundation Photography Prize 2020. She is a recipient of the 2018 National Geographic Society Grant for Research and Exploration. Her first monograph was Beyond Drifting: Imperfectly Known Animals (Overlapse, 2017) followed by Altered Ocean (Overlapse, 2019). In 2023 Barker was awarded the International Understanding Through Photography Award (IUTP) by the Photographic Society of America. This award annually recognises an accomplished photographer whose images and their presentation have clearly contributed to international understanding among people.
