Tiny Plastic Shore Wrack Charm Bracelet #1: Earth Day for Liberation 

April 22, 2024  

Today is Earth Day. THE FIRST EARTH DAY WAS A STUDENT DEMONSTRATION. NOW STUDENTS WANT LIBERATION. Other Instagram posts on this day flash into my eyes. DISCLOSE.DIVEST. WE WILL NOT STOP. WE WILL NOT REST. THIS EARTH DAY: DEMAND AN END TO ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE AND ECOCIDE OF GAZA. WAR IS NOT GREEN!  

Low-tide. East River Estuary. Marsha P. Johnson State Park shore in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY) 

I sit on the sandy ground, my hands searching for tiny plastic washed ashore with the last high-tide. Carried by circular currents, each of the tiny plastic breaks down in its own way. My hands touch the tiny plastics, both hands become students of time, place, and transformation.  

Take Time 

Breathe 

Notice  

Ask Questions 

Is the tiny plastic oily, sandy and or what on your fingertips? 

Did the tiny plastic start on the land to change with the sun and wind before they found the ocean? 

           Tiny plastic fragments broke off from a larger piece in the ocean.  

Sense the original shape? Where is the rest of the shape? 

How did it taste and how does it taste now? 

Did a creature eat some? 

What if another creature eats that creature?    

Is shore clean up an illusion? 

Are you an offering, a burden, debris, a food source, a re-use?  

I have a needle with me, sharp enough to perforate thick plastic, and a thread that is thick enough to allow me to create knots if I have too. A needle and thread are a way to connect one tiny plastic with another. Humans crafted charm bracelets a long time ago and often they carry personal or sentimental attachment by the wearer and in the form of amulets and talismans to ward off bad luck.    

Take time.  

Repeated Rhythm with Nuance 

Lift a tiny plastic 

Thread the tiny plastic, an exertion 

Search the sandy ground, a recuperation

I lift a tiny green plastic. My fingers feel oily. Tiny plastic is hydrophobic — it repels water. So oily contaminants tend to glom onto pieces of plastic. In a way, plastic acts like a sponge, soaking up hydrophobic contaminants. (*)  

Take time. 

Wear the tiny plastic charm bracelet. 

Dance a dance with the hand and the shore  

What do you hear? Who do you connect with?  

In this gestural dance I connect with my dear friend, seaweed “bladderwrack” that is holding fast on the shore rocks. I hear some liberation mixed with unrest and disturbance. Bladderwrack is a macroalgae andcan release dimethyl sulfide (DMS), which we often call “the smell of the sea”. It turns out that floating plastic debris provides the perfect platform on which macroalgae can thrive. As macroalgae break down, emitting the DMS odor, seabirds and other creatures, following their noses in search of krill, are led into an “olfactory trap” and eat the plastic (**). 

Thank the shore for the time given.  

I brought the tiny plastic charm bracelet home. Tiny Plastic Charm Bracelet “Earth Day for Liberation” hangs on the wall now. I breathe in the olefactory trap. 

Scientific Source: 

• "Plastic goes missing at sea" by Sam Lemonick. Science News, July 1, 2014 https://www.sciencenews.org/article/plastic-goes-missing-sea

• "Animals eat plastic because it smells like food." National Geographic, November 9, 2016 https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/animals-eat-plastic-because-it-smells-food/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in a Swiss farming village and residing half of their life in Lenapehoking/Brooklyn, andrea haenggi (she/they) is a body-based transdisciplinary artist who cultivates a research-based “ethnochoreobotanic” practice. Rooted in co-creating dance with the land-sea, plant life, and more-than-human kin, their work seeks to foster multispecies communities in the present and shape questions around decolonization, climate change, feminism, liberation, and care.

weedychoreography.com and environmentalperformanceagency.com

Next Chapter in this Issue: Leavings — Nora Almeida