Dirty Beach, a collaboration of local artists Lou McCurdy and Chloe Hanks, created an installation that subverted the supermarket environment to display found plastics collected from UK beaches.

TruCost Super-M-Art used all of the tricks & trappings of modern supermarkets to create an eerie and thought provoking display of found plastic items recovered from local beaches in three weeks. The familiarity of the environment (complete with shopper noises, tannoy announcements, strong artificial lighting, point-of-sale displays) contrast with the evolved, transformed and yet still familiar discarded plastic items amused, challenges and enveloped the viewer.

Project partners include Arts Council England, Marine Conservation Society, National Trust, Mooncup, Surfers against Sewage, The Roddick Foundation, Keep Britain Tidy, Plymouth University (School of Marine Science and Engineering), Plastic Pollution Coalition, Birling Gap Beach Cleaning Team, Cat Fletcher and Freegle, March of the Mermaids, BHCC Brighton seafront beach cleaning team.

Supporting Events Included: 

MEET THE ARTISTS – 18th – 22nd December – Free – Artists Lou and Chloe were available in the gallery to meet visitors  , show them the exhibition and explain a little bit about the project.

DIRTY BEACH presents “TALK RUBBISH” – 18th November at Sallis Benney Theatre from 7pm  –  Our throwaway society is polluting large areas of the worlds oeans. How did it get there? What are the practicle solutions? Is it time to re-evaluare waste as a resource? Speakers included Dr. Richard Thompson, Duncan Baker Brown, Cat Fletcher, Ivan MacFadyen and Emma Cunningham.

RUBBISH MOVIE NIGHTS – 21st November from 5pm – 10pm at Brighthelm Centre & 30th November from 6pm – 10pm at All Saints Centre – Films include Clean Bin Project, Trashed (Featuring Jeremy Irons), & more!

DIRTY BEACH PARTY – 17th December from 4pm – 1am at The Blind Tiger – Beach party fun all afternoon followed by a packed night of top Brighton live acts and DJs, including Nick Hollywood (White Mink), Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer, DJ Oli Node & More!

A WASTE OF SPACE – ONCA’s Second Writing Competition –  Submit to by 30th January. Performance and evening of Waste poetry on 8th February. Three Age Ranges : 6 – 11, 12 – 16, and adult. Word limit for short stories is 2000 words, no limit for poetry.

CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP : TRASH TALES – 15th December from 10:30am – 12pm at The ONCA Gallery. Participants explored the TruCost journey through poetry and stories with ONCA Writer in Residence Joanna Coleman. The workshop included writing games and the space for creation of prose and poetry.