For centuries , leghorn have slide by longsighted minute out on the assailable water system by turning elements of nature into beautiful nontextual matter . From aboard whaling ships camescrimshaw , a folk art tradition that change state heavyweight teeth and bones into intricate carved objective . whaler etch elaborate shot of maritime life , the exciting chases for their prey , and portraits of their sweethearts , president , and family member on sperm hulk tooth . ( Now , sperm whales are a protectedendangered speciesand it ’s illegal topossess or selltheir parts ; scrimshanders today carvereplica teethmade out of resin . )
sailor boy also collected fragile seashell from their voyages around the South Pacific and made “ skimmer ’ valentines . ” The shells were glued in a coloured placement inside an octangular frame and given as gifts to sweethearts upon the mariners ’ return from their ocean trip . Historians have also uncover clues intimate that many sailors ’ Valentine were likelyproduced by womenin Barbados and purchased by American sailors just before arriving abode .
These unbelievable artifacts are sensational memento , but they ’re not exactly sustainable or environmentally conscious . The design incubatorStudio Swine , however , has paid court to this maritime tradition by repurposing older ice pulled from the sea to create exchangeable works of art .
Even out in the midsection of the ocean — where the stuffy other people might be the ones in ambit — human - made plastic abounds . It ’s difficult to tax the full amount of plastic of every size and type in the oceans , but a 2015studyin the journalScienceestimated that in just the class 2010 , roughly8 million metric tonsentered seas around the world . For a project called Gyrecraft , a squad from Studio Swine collected a fraction of this plastic and melted it down to a malleable medium using their on - board solar extruder . Check out the miniskirt - documentary on the project from National Geographic above .
A version of this story was published in 2015 ; it has been updated for 2023 .
