Focus In: Washed Ashore

Washed Ashore traveling exhibits feature intricate, beautifully designed sea life sculptures made entirely of marine debris collected from beaches. The giant sculptures of marine life graphically illustrate the tragedy of plastic pollution in our oceans and waterways and encourage conservation. These exhibits provide opportunities to express and teach environmental issues through the arts.

The Artula Institute for Arts and Environmental Education is the nonprofit organization that enabled and supported the Washed Ashore project. In the early days, Artula hosted an artist-in-residency program by the sea in Bandon, Oregon. Washed Ashore’s continued growth has become the cornerstone of Artula, with four traveling exhibits, ongoing sculpture making, and more.

Our Mission
The Washed Ashore mission is to build and exhibit aesthetically powerful art to educate a global audience about plastic pollution in the ocean and waterways and to spark positive changes in consumer habits.

We have collected and processed more than thirty-five tons of garbage off Pacific Coast beaches into more than eighty-six giant marine-life sculptures in the last twelve years. More than 14,000 volunteers have worked with us to create four traveling exhibits that have now reached more than thirty-five million people nationwide and in Canada. We lease our exhibits to zoos, aquariums, science centers, museums, botanical gardens, theme parks, and cities to reach as many people as possible. We have exhibited at the United Nations, the US State Department, and the Smithsonian.

Marine Debris Curriculum
Education is our backbone. Our founder received a large grant from NOAA and partnered with a scientist to write the Integrated Arts Marine Debris Curriculum, offered free online at washedashore.org. We have trained teachers at the Smithsonian, Disney, SeaWorld, and across the nation on using the power of the arts to educate about marine debris.

Our Five Initiatives

Love the Ocean: To know the ocean, its shorelines, and its inhabitants. To understand how the ocean affects everyone everywhere.
Plastic Pollution: To understand marine debris, how it happens, how it travels, and the environmental and ecological impacts.
Arts Enliven: To use the language of the visual, performing, literary, and media arts to awaken the senses, gain attention, and promote solutions to plastic pollution.
R’s every day: Reduce, reuse, recycle, and refuse in everyday life. To understand the realities of recycling and the processes of repurposing.
Eco-Shift: To change individual habits to refuse plastics, rethink purchases, and shift to more eco-friendly consumer alternatives. To encourage individual, community, governmental, and corporate formats for change.

Sharing Our Message
Washed Ashore has been featured in the New York Times, Audubon magazine, Smithsonian magazine, O, the Oprah Magazine, and SchoolArts (December 2016). We’ve also been featured in publications for children such as Ranger Ricks, National Geographic Kids, and Highlights. We have been included on television and radio shows such as NPR’s Morning Edition, PBS Newshour, and The Kelly Clarkson Show.

Washed Ashore’s ongoing programs include traveling educational exhibits and educational events. Our art and educational exhibit hall in Bandon, Oregon, includes free weekly walk-in community workshops, educational tours, and school field trips.

We value our Southern Oregon community and partner with local businesses to reward our volunteers. We invest in our region through volunteer workshops to assist in sculpture production and school programs to teach students that every action counts. We also partner with Oregon State Parks, SOLVE, and Surfrider to clean 300 miles of Oregon coast beaches.

We invite you to share with your students our Washed Ashore full-length feature documentary, free to stream and show for educational purposes (see Resources). We make art that educates all. Everyone can learn about our mission, and everyone can participate.