Art Underwater

Life Matters New Digest No. 073 June 2024

The theme perhaps of this month's newsletter is the environment and what we can do to improve it. In my small way I, like many of you, do my bit to recycle where I can and not waste resources such as water and electricity where possible.

Some people though are much more ambitious. For example, Jason deCaires Taylor, a British-born sculptor whose permanent site-specific works are exhibited in submerged and tidal marine environments.

The world's first underwater sculptural park was created off the west coast of Grenada in the Caribbean at Moilinere Bay in 2006 and has been listed as one of the Top 35 Wonders of the World by National Geographic. It is also now a Marine Protected Area.

Jason constructs his sculptures using pH-neutral, environmentally sensitive marine grade cement, free of pollutants, to encourage the natural growth of corals and plant life and in the long term to create new reefs.

The placement timing of installations is also critical, i.e. making sure they are installed downstream of larval coral spawning events, yet not so early that it gets colonised by other sea creatures before coral can take hold.

In many cases, the sculptures are placed on barren sand areas away from existing coral reefs to create new reefs and to distract tourists from existing but fragile already-developed ecosystems.

Jason has so far created 17 marine parks and tidal sculpture features and up to 500,000 people visit his sculptures, situated in all the major oceans and seas of the world, each year.

His images usually reflect the local people in the areas where they are placed or cultural or political events such as Brexit (below) and the immigrants/boats crisis.

You can find more of Jason's fascinating underwater images in his gallery and also in this video:

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Turning Holes into Art

An increasing problem in Europe, especially the UK, is potholes. On the rare occasion I drive out of the Eurotunnel terminal back into the UK, I am shocked by the state of Britain's roads.

Before you know it you are bumping over poorly maintained highways and swerving suddenly to avoid tyre-shredding and suspension-destroying holes in the road.

Clearly, local authorities in Britain have run out of money and resources to keep the roads functioning properly and it is costing motorists a great deal of time and cost in damage repair.

In France, roads are generally well-maintained, even in small villages - though my street could do with a bit of attention, Monsieur Le Mayor!

However, meet the fairly anonymous Ememem, sometimes called France's answer to "Banksy." Ememem ( a name said to originate with the sound of his motorbike) has made a reputation by going out at night over the last 8 years and filling damaged pavements and potholes with mosaics. He also calls himself "the pavement surgeon" or "the pothole knight."

Most of his work has centred on his city of residence, Lyon, where there are more than 350 works on the streets. They have become such a feature that the city council commissioned six "flackings," as he calls them, and also to add mosaics and tiling to some new cycleways over the following four years.

Enterprising local guides are now leading visitors on street tours of the artworks. "Flacking" is a play on the French word une flaque, meaning a puddle.

Ememem has no formal art training but he worked with his father who was a house tiler, which is where perhaps the inspiration came from, but he refuses to be photographed or to give phone or face-to-face interviews.

When he is working on a piece in the road or street he uses cones and barrier tape and pretends to be a plumber or other essential utility worker. Some of his works resemble archaeological remains.

Outside France, he has installed "flackings" in Madrid, Barcelona, Norway, Germany, Scotland, New York and Turin and has been approached to do work in Santiago and Valparaiso in Chile. Plus an art gallery in Paris is now selling his "portable flackings," mosaics on an asphalt base, for between €10,000 and €12,000.

"The goal," he says, "is to spread a touch of poetry under the jaded soles of our shoes, to provoke a moment of amazement, a smile." I'm all for that!

​You can see more of Ememem's work on his Instagram page:​

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Taking up SpoGomi?

What the hell is SpoGomi, I hear you asking? Well, every day when I go for my walk, I usually end up picking up someone else's discarded rubbish.

It just amazes me that in this supposedly environmentally-conscious day and age, people can throw away their trash and drive or walk off without even thinking about it. "Ignorance is bliss" they say - but not for the rest of us who have to put up with that "ignorance."

SpoGomi though is a sport which originated in Japan in 2008. The name combines the words "sport" and "gomi," the Japanese word for "trash." It was created to aid the environment by collecting rubbish and as a pushback on the climate crisis where 80% of the trash in the oceans originated on land.

The sport has become so popular that there are now competitions all around the world and last November 2023, the first SpoGomi World Cup. Twenty countries took part, plus all of Japan's prefectures, and it was won by a team from the UK (plenty of rubbish-collecting practice there!).

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Believe it or not, there is a whole set of rules to competitive rubbish collecting. In general, teams consist of three to five members who have to collect as much trash as possible within a designated area and within a set time limit, usually one hour plus twenty minutes to sort it.

Sorting the trash into burnable and non-burnable rubbish gets you 10 points per 100 grams, cans and bottles 12 points, PET (polyethylene terephthalate - a recyclable plastic) bottles 25 points and top points are gained for picking up cigarette butts at 100 points each!

As everything must fit into the trash bags provided, no one is allowed to pick up hazardous waste or large items. Transporting waste other than by walking is frowned upon. Here is another video of the World Cup Stage held in France, where it is already established:

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As you can see, a sizeable amount of rubbish is collected, everyone gets exercise and has fun and lastly, even if you lose, you have the satisfaction of having contributed to improving the environment. I think I could get into this one!

Just to give you an idea of the amount of rubbish we all create, here is a photograph of American environmentalist Rob Greenfield, who made a suit out of all the refuse he produced in a month back in 2022. The suit weighed over 100 lbs.

The average American produces 4.5 lbs of trash a day. Times the current population of the USA at 341 million ..... times the populations of all the developed and developing nations of the world ........!

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Back to The Wild

A long time, I worked in a zoo for about 18 months. To the public, it looked great and they loved looking at the animals. Behind the scenes, it was a different story. A giant anteater bashing its head against the wall of its tiny cell in frustration until it bled and ancient giant land tortoises in such a small space they could neither pass, turn around nor even climb over each other.

Fortunately, not all zoos are like that - at least I hope not. Some do good work keeping endangered breeds alive and encouraging them to breed. Kudos then to Prague Zoo which, after a 200-year absence, has returned Przewalski's horses to the plains of their native Kazakhstan.

Records indicate that people have been riding and milking horses in northern Kazakhstan for nearly 2,000 years before domesticated horses appeared in Europe. The Przewalski horse is named after the Russian explorer Nikolai Przewalski, who first officially discovered them in the 19th century, along with the Bactrian camel, both unknown in the West at the time.

The seven horses, 4 mares from Berlin Zoo and a stallion, and 3 other mares from Prague Zoo in the Czech Republic were flown to Kazakhstan on a Czech Air Force plane. The horses died out completely in the wild in the 1960s but they hope to increase this herd to 40 during the next five years.

Similar schemes have returned the horses to China and western Mongolia where their population now tops 1,500. The Prague/Berlin horses will stay in an acclimatisation enclosure for a year to make sure they know how to find water and food during the harsh winters of the Kazakhstan steppes.

Once free, the horses will enable biodiversity by spreading seeds in their dung, breaking up the soil when they dig for plants allowing water to soak in, and naturally fertilising the steppes.

Getting the horses to Kazakhstan was not easy. To make sure their blood circulated properly they had to remain standing for the whole of the 30-hour journey, 10 hours of it overland. An eighth horse that sat down at the airport, had to be returned to the zoo because it would not have survived the journey.

Prezewalski horses are the only true wild horses left in the world, the USA wild mustangs being domesticated horses that escaped and became feral. Now seven more true wild horses are free and will soon be running wild!

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Baguettes and Blaquette

A friend of mine, Jo O'Neil, has put together an intriguing book written by ten women who have settled in the part of Southern France where I live. They are all of strong character and (like me) slightly eccentric!

I am in the middle of reading the book right now. What fascinates me is discovering the background of people I have spoken to but clearly don't "know." It's something we don't do enough of - seek out the real stories of people's lives rather than just the superficial ones that we share with each other on a daily basis.

It's the real stories that make people interesting, not the assumptions we make based on infrequent meetings or shallow engagements. Some of the ladies in the book have had quite exotic lives before arriving here in our quiet, out-of-the-way town on the River Aude.

But they are all here for a reason, they did not arrive by accident. The events of their lives, the pains and sorrows, the achievements and disappointments and everything else in between shaped them to take the plunge, uproot their lives and settle in an obscure part of France.

I recommend "Baguettes and Blanquette" to you. Blanquette, by the way, is the local sparkling wine which we tend to drink lavishly. The locals like to proudly tell that it was invented before champagne - and it's a darned sight cheaper! Don't all rush to get here at once!

​You can obtain a copy of the book from Amazon:​

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Dark Dance

Dance always fascinates me. The ability to move the body in unusual ways, the fitness levels you have to achieve, the power of it and the emotional force. I was therefore pleased to come across the work of choreographer Sergio Reis.

Just 28 years old, he has made a name for himself in the Netherlands where he teaches dance. There is something different about the group of dancers he has trained, the troupe known as CDK.

A little dark perhaps (especially when they dance wearing clown make-up in one of his videos) but original, clever, invigorating and refreshing and not the moves you normally expect.

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The video above has had 9.2 million views in 4 months, which gives you some idea of the impact he is making. So well known had Sergio become that he was asked to train BTS, the K-Pop supergroup from South Korea, one of the most successful groups in the world, for the dance moves to their song "Black Swan."

This was the impressive result while they were just practising:

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Credits: Many thanks to Karen for all her inspiration this month. Photo Credits: Jason deClaires Taylor/Suzanne Lovelling, Jason deCaires Taylor/Underwatersculpture.com x 4, Ememem/Instagram x 8, Odua/Depositphotos/My Modern Met, JACrispy/Depositphotos/My Modern Met, Cowardlions/Depositphotos/My Modern Met, Rob Greenfield/Creative Commons Licence 4.0, Reuters/Independent x 2, D Rosengren/Global Rewilding Alliance/The Guardian x 2.

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END PIECE

As I finish writing this newsletter, England has just won 2-1 in their knockout match in the Euros football competition against Slovakia and the 1st round of the snap election in France has concluded with exit polls suggesting Rassemblement National (RN -"National Rally"), the extreme right-wing party of Marine Le Pen, has won around 34% of the vote.

That's good news about England who have survived to fight another day, but not so good news from France. However, there is a 2nd round of voting in France next Sunday and usually the French express their anger with the government/president in the 1st round but vote in a more centrist, restrained way in the 2nd.

That may or may not happen this time. However, turnout in this election is extremely high, hitting 60% at 15.00 hours this afternoon. That's more than 20% higher than at the same time of day in the 2022 election and if carried through to the rest of the day, the highest election turnout since 1986.

As an "immigrant" to France, the result matters to me. The RN are very strongly against any immigration and if they form the next government they will impose all sorts of restrictions on "foreigners" living here and deny the right of children born here to immigrant parents to be called "French."

RN has done a lot to change its image over the last few years, but as with many extremely right-wing groups, one can't help but feel they remain racist and anti-semitic under the surface. It is also well known that RN were "loaned" millions of dollars by Russia, which is never reassuring.

Hopefully President Macron's "Together" alliance bloc plus the socialist grouping, the "New Popular Front" will win enough seats to deny RN an absolute majority (289 seats) in parliament and the opportunity to form the next government and appoint the next prime minister. Either way, Macron will stay in power as president until 2027. Fingers crossed!

As for the election in the UK, there are barely 4 days to go. I think everyone believes the result is a foregone conclusion, which it surely is, but the final split of party seats will be interesting to observe. It will be a long night as the results come in.

Until the next time, stay healthy, take good care of yourself - and be kind caring, generous and patient with those less fortunate than ourselves.

All good wishes,