Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio. If you've passed through Bradley International
Speaker 1: Airport recently, you may have noticed a sixty foot long,
Speaker 1: twenty foot wide, life size portrait of a sperm whale
Speaker 1: made from discarded plastic bags and shipping mailers. The piece
Speaker 1: was created by My Guest Today as part of her
Speaker 1: ongoing Entangled and Ingested art series. Tat Owens is not
Speaker 1: only an ambitious artist, she is also a plastic pollution researcher, activist,
Speaker 1: and professor. Owens merges science, policy and the arts to
Speaker 1: create life size portraits of the animals harmed by plastic
Speaker 1: pollution to raise environmental awareness. Caat Owens is also a
Speaker 1: National Geographic Explorer, Fulbright Nehrew Fellow and a professor at
Speaker 1: the University of Hartford in Connecticut. Owens seamlessly blacken her
Speaker 1: visual art with her day to day work. I wanted
Speaker 1: to know if she first considered herself to be an
Speaker 1: artist or an environmentalist.
Speaker 2: That's a good question. I would say an artist first. Definitely.
Speaker 2: From a young age, I was very interested in drawing
Speaker 2: and making things, and fortunately was able to get some
Speaker 2: art lessons and things before I got to school age
Speaker 2: where it was available through schools. And then I went
Speaker 2: to college, the College of Charleston in South Carolina, and
Speaker 2: I was a studio art major there and got exposed
Speaker 2: to all kinds of amazing things painting, printmaking, a little
Speaker 2: bit of sculpture drawing. But when I was at college,
Speaker 2: the subject matter for all of my work was insects.
Speaker 2: I was really into bugs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so bugs came into the picture when.
Speaker 2: In high school I had a high school biology class
Speaker 2: where we had to do a bug collection. And I
Speaker 2: was always like an outdoorsy kind of kid, but that's
Speaker 2: when I started collecting bug And then I went to
Speaker 2: college and I was kind of just you know, your
Speaker 2: art teacher says like make something, and you don't know
Speaker 2: what to make, right, you know, Nothing's like your brain's
Speaker 2: not working like that yet, really like thinking about deep
Speaker 2: thoughts quite yet. So I was like, oh, I'm going
Speaker 2: to make I've got all these insects, I'm going to
Speaker 2: start making art. And so I really got into it
Speaker 2: and would be like I was the bug girl at
Speaker 2: my college and people would bring me bugs. I would
Speaker 2: go out to bars and people would be like Oh
Speaker 2: my god, I found this great moth. I'm going to
Speaker 2: bring it to you to the studio next week and
Speaker 2: they would, which was really fun. Then I graduated with
Speaker 2: an art degree, and back then in the nineties, they
Speaker 2: were kind of like, yeah, good luck. No information about
Speaker 2: like how to start a career. They said, if you're lucky,
Speaker 2: after you're dead, people might be interested in your art work.
Speaker 2: So I waitressed for two years and then I was like,
Speaker 2: you know, I think I'd like to study science more formally,
Speaker 2: and so I sat in on an entomology class. The
Speaker 2: professor at the College of Charleston let me in on
Speaker 2: his class, and I really loved it, and so then
Speaker 2: I decided to take the plunge. I went back to
Speaker 2: school and got degrees in biology and anthropology and all
Speaker 2: the work what I was doing was connected to insects. Why, well,
Speaker 2: they're fascinating.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I agree, there are great I watched
Speaker 1: my share of insect documentaries, But like, you really go
Speaker 1: down this road, I mean, you get degrees and all
Speaker 1: these really really heady subjects. What was the goal? Where
Speaker 1: were you? You weren't going to be an artist, you
Speaker 1: were going to do what.
Speaker 2: I thought at the time that I would be a scientist,
Speaker 2: that I would go to graduate school and study entomology.
Speaker 2: I was especially into beatles, and I started a master's
Speaker 2: degree at the College of Charleston and environmental studies, and
Speaker 2: I was on the brink of doing a project about
Speaker 2: ground beetles in the Smoky Mountains and I loved it.
Speaker 2: But then over time I had realized, if you're an entomologist,
Speaker 2: you spend like six weeks out collecting bugs and the
Speaker 2: rest of the year looking through microscopes counting leg parts. Know,
Speaker 2: And I thought, I don't know if I if I
Speaker 2: want to spend the rest of my life indoors looking
Speaker 2: through a microscope. And so I got more interested in
Speaker 2: sort of like the environmental policy side of things. And
Speaker 2: so I switched from the science track to the policy
Speaker 2: track in my master's program and started.
Speaker 1: Studying this is where's what's school at.
Speaker 2: The College of Charleston in South Carolina?
Speaker 1: And what is this place you went? It's called twin It's.
Speaker 2: Called University of Fenta in the Netherlands.
Speaker 1: And you were there how long a while?
Speaker 2: Almost five years? It was amazing that was for what program?
Speaker 2: It was a PhD program in sustainability and governance.
Speaker 1: So you have Do you have a PhD? You finished? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Definitely, My god.
Speaker 1: What was it like studying that there?
Speaker 2: Very cool? I mean I loved being in the Netherlands,
Speaker 2: you know, no car biking everywhere. Wonderful place to be,
Speaker 2: sort of like young and broke. I have my two
Speaker 2: oldest children. I had the there because it was free
Speaker 2: and you got all kinds of support.
Speaker 1: How old are your kids now?
Speaker 2: They are just turning. Their birthdays are last week and
Speaker 2: next week, twenty and eighteen.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, what does your husband do?
Speaker 2: He at the time, he was for a long time
Speaker 2: he was building timber barns out of like you know
Speaker 2: they do like hand barn raising.
Speaker 1: Sure, and very expensive barns.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know a guy if you need a cheap one.
Speaker 2: But he did that for a long time, and then
Speaker 2: about ten years ago he's like, I can't keep climbing
Speaker 2: up these ladders, like this is I'm getting too old
Speaker 2: for this. And he went back to school and now
Speaker 2: he teaches botany in Connecticut.
Speaker 1: So you stayed five years in the Netherlands. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: that's what it took for you to do the program
Speaker 1: the doctor. Yeah, and the degree was in what again.
Speaker 2: It's governance and sustainability. It's like environmental policy, right.
Speaker 1: And when you went into that knowing it was going
Speaker 1: to be five years of your life, what was the goal? Meaning?
Speaker 1: Year along the way before you started making artwork of
Speaker 1: innocent animals being contaminated and poisoned by our hands. What
Speaker 1: was the goal before? Were you thinking of going into
Speaker 1: some kind of administrative job, or you wanted an appointment,
Speaker 1: you wanted to work for a state, you wanted to
Speaker 1: run for office. What was the goal then?
Speaker 2: I think, I, you know, I had all these degrees, right,
Speaker 2: I spent a lot of time as an undergraduate. I
Speaker 2: loved the professors I had, and I thought I want
Speaker 2: to be like them. I want to get a PhD
Speaker 2: and teach at a university. And that's how I ended
Speaker 2: up kind of on that track.
Speaker 1: When you finished in the University of Venta, when you
Speaker 1: graduated from that.
Speaker 2: What year was that two thousand and eight?
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's a while ago, that's seventeen years ago.
Speaker 1: And what was the plan you were going to go do?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: And what happened?
Speaker 2: I started looking for jobs at colleges, at universities, full
Speaker 2: time teaching jobs. Yeah, that's when I came over. My
Speaker 2: husband was doing the timber framing at that time, and
Speaker 2: he was like, can we go somewhere where there are
Speaker 2: trees and barns, like a history of trees and barns,
Speaker 2: And so we were almost exclusively looking in New England.
Speaker 2: And I applied for the job at the University of
Speaker 2: Hartford and I got that and I've been there for
Speaker 2: eighteen years.
Speaker 1: So nothing in your academic career revisited Georgia. When you
Speaker 1: grew up in Georgia, you left Georgia never to return.
Speaker 2: I mean, I go to sea family, but I haven't
Speaker 2: lived there since I was eighteen.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I lived in Charleston for ten years, and then the Netherlands,
Speaker 2: and then I've been in Connecticut ever since.
Speaker 1: When you started this work, what did you see like
Speaker 1: for me, I see that plastics pollution has usurped many
Speaker 1: other environmental issues because everybody's under the impression we've all
Speaker 1: been contaminated by massive amounts of plastics pollution. What was
Speaker 1: the thing that alarmed you that you decided you wanted
Speaker 1: to pivot into this art project you've been doing.
Speaker 2: I was playing around with it as early as twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: but I really started during the pandemic, doing the the artwork,
Speaker 2: and focusing on this particular project. So at that time,
Speaker 2: I'd been studying water policy for about twenty years, and
Speaker 2: plastic pollution started to be a big issue within environmental
Speaker 2: policy and water policy. And the more I looked at it,
Speaker 2: I knew in Connecticut, on Long Island Sound, we weren't
Speaker 2: one of these places like you can see stories on
Speaker 2: the Midway Islands in Hawaii where they just get like
Speaker 2: tons of plastic like showing up on their islands. And
Speaker 2: I knew we weren't one of those kinds of places.
Speaker 2: But I wanted to know sort of like what this
Speaker 2: big global problem looked like in my neck of the woods.
Speaker 2: So I applied for funding from NOAH, the National Oceanic
Speaker 2: and Atmospheric Administration, and the idea of the project was
Speaker 2: that I would take my students from the University of
Speaker 2: Hartford and we'd go down to the beach and collect
Speaker 2: debris and analyze it and then share the results with policymakers,
Speaker 2: like I wanted to make that connection.
Speaker 1: Between state or federal.
Speaker 2: State level policymakers, so we did that. That was funding
Speaker 2: that I got in twenty sixteen to do that project.
Speaker 2: And it was really fun, really cool experience for my students.
Speaker 2: And then based on that, I applied for funding from
Speaker 2: the Fulbright Foundation to replicate that project in a place
Speaker 2: called Thoruvn and Thaperam, India, which is in southwest India.
Speaker 2: And it's the same idea. We go, we collect debris
Speaker 2: and we analyze it, we use scientific methods to do
Speaker 2: it and then share the results with policymakers. And you know,
Speaker 2: while I was there, I got it funded from the
Speaker 2: National Geographic Society too, to train other folks from around
Speaker 2: India in these methods.
Speaker 1: Did they have a lot of money available for that
Speaker 1: kind of thing?
Speaker 2: National Geographic Society they have a really strong grant program
Speaker 2: and once you get in the door as an explorer,
Speaker 2: they offer all kinds of like really great opportunities to
Speaker 2: collaborate with other explorers and do all kinds of neat projects.
Speaker 2: So I'm very grateful.
Speaker 1: No these grants or grants that we might assume maybe
Speaker 1: not that are going to evaporate pretty soon.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, National Geographic is independent, but
Speaker 2: Noah has certainly been impacted.
Speaker 1: Right, That's what I's referring to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is a shame, right, because it's
Speaker 2: really about like protecting resources for all of us that
Speaker 2: are critical for our survival, something we should all care about.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, for me, the beginnings or some of
Speaker 1: the beginnings of this. I mean, I've worked with people
Speaker 1: at U n EP, the former U n DP Development Program.
Speaker 1: I've worked with people for years now, and much of
Speaker 1: it related to plastics pollution. And you know, some of
Speaker 1: the initial you know, pulsing, dramatic presentations were about the
Speaker 1: Pacific garbage gyre out there throwing off all kinds of
Speaker 1: you know, it's just a piece of a giant garbage
Speaker 1: jump leeching plastic into the water in the baking sun,
Speaker 1: the size of Rhode Island or whatever the hell it
Speaker 1: is now Texas. Okay, Well, I was hoping you wouldn't
Speaker 1: say that, But I'm so sorry, Saith, but the I
Speaker 1: don't want to discourage our listeners. But when I was young,
Speaker 1: recycling was it you were told and if you could
Speaker 1: compose or whatever, you know. I made efforts in all
Speaker 1: those areas. But now plastics pollution seems to be the devil.
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody's really, really, really uptight about this. When
Speaker 1: did you first become aware of this and what kind
Speaker 1: of work were you doing even as a child.
Speaker 2: I mean, I wasn't really engaged on things around plastic
Speaker 2: and climate change or things like that as a child.
Speaker 2: My awareness came much later because I am from a
Speaker 2: very small town, rural town in Georgia. But you know,
Speaker 2: it's definitely for me in college and then later in
Speaker 2: graduate school and even as someone who studies it. You know,
Speaker 2: my eyes have been opened so much over the last
Speaker 2: decade about recycling and what's really happening with recycling. I
Speaker 2: do recycle. I try to recycle, but it doesn't make
Speaker 2: me feel good all the time because I don't truly
Speaker 2: believe that a lot of the recycling is happening.
Speaker 1: Right being handled properly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And so what happened in twenty eighteen or
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, China put this policy in place called the
Speaker 2: National Sword Policy, where they said they were no longer
Speaker 2: going to take our basically like shredded bales of plastic
Speaker 2: and recycle them anymore. And when that happened, the sort
Speaker 2: of market for recycling disappeared because no one wants it.
Speaker 2: And so I know that, you know, whereas local government's,
Speaker 2: municipal governments used to get a little bit of money.
Speaker 2: I mean it probably added up to like a couple
Speaker 2: ten thousand dollars, you know, for a town like my
Speaker 2: town over the year. Now there's no market for it.
Speaker 1: Researcher, activist, and artist kat Owens. If you enjoy conversations
Speaker 1: with artists inspired by nature, check out my episode with
Speaker 1: photographer Carolyn Marx Blackwood. So singing writing the photography on
Speaker 1: that level, do they overlap.
Speaker 3: Yes, and they overlap to this day, I'm doing photography.
Speaker 3: I'm having museum shows that are coming up, i have
Speaker 3: galleries where I have shows, and I'm making movies with
Speaker 3: my partner. So when one part of my brain gets tired,
Speaker 3: I go to the other thing, and it's just a
Speaker 3: whole other part of my brain. It's wonderful.
Speaker 1: To hear my conversation with Carolyn Marx Blackwood. Go to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing dot Org. After the break, kat Owens
Speaker 1: talks about the goal behind her Entangled and Ingested series
Speaker 1: and what she is trying to say through art. I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Has
Speaker 1: traveled the world for her research. After attending college in Charleston,
Speaker 1: Owens spent five years in the Netherlands completing her PhD.
Speaker 1: She continued her research in Finland, India, Indonesia, and Uganda.
Speaker 1: These days, Owens resides in Connecticut and teaches at the
Speaker 1: University of Hartford. Owens and her students gather samples and
Speaker 1: data from marine debris collected along the Connecticut shorelines. Having
Speaker 1: lived and studied in so many unique places across the world,
Speaker 1: I wanted to know what drew Owens to Connecticut.
Speaker 2: I applied to a few universities in the Northeast for
Speaker 2: a job, and I came to Hartford, and I really
Speaker 2: loved it. It has a real potential for interdisciplinary work
Speaker 2: because it has a music school, an art school, an
Speaker 2: engineering school, a College of Arts and Sciences, a business school.
Speaker 2: So it's got a lot of depth, even though it's
Speaker 2: a really small institution, relatively small institution. So I thought
Speaker 2: that would be that they might kind of get my
Speaker 2: whole interdisciplinary way of doing things and it might be more,
Speaker 2: you know, just like a good place to grow and thrive.
Speaker 2: And then they hired me, so like that all came together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're geniuses if they hired me. Now described for me.
Speaker 1: You said you started this that the artwork, the specific
Speaker 1: artwork we're talking about in doing COVID, and interesting how
Speaker 1: a lot of people needed something like that to soothe
Speaker 1: them and we all had our way to negotiate our
Speaker 1: way through COVID. Described to me the genesis of the pieces,
Speaker 1: described me, how that process begins. Is it all recycled material?
Speaker 1: Described to me what you're making as an artist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this began during COVID when all of that
Speaker 2: research that I was doing out in the field got
Speaker 2: canceled and my regular job. And it's true, I'm sure
Speaker 2: for everyone who was in education at any level at
Speaker 2: that time, like it just exploded into all this terrible
Speaker 2: you know, you're stuck in these meetings, you're making choices
Speaker 2: that aren't great. And I was really stuck in a
Speaker 2: lot of ZOOM meetings at that time and struggling with
Speaker 2: it because I'd just come back from India. I had
Speaker 2: all this kind of momentum behind my work and I
Speaker 2: thought like things are really coming together, like maybe we
Speaker 2: can change policy on this issue. So what I started
Speaker 2: to do is to create these life size portraits of
Speaker 2: different species that are harmed by plastic pollution, such as well,
Speaker 2: I mean, they're over five hundred of them.
Speaker 1: Sure, what was your first one?
Speaker 2: The fairy penguin, which is a little, a little cute
Speaker 2: blue penguin that I believe is from It goes between
Speaker 2: South Africa and Antarctica. I'm not a penguin.
Speaker 1: Why that animal?
Speaker 2: Why it's cute and it's small. I started small because
Speaker 2: I wasn't. So what I do is I hand so
Speaker 2: film plastics onto canvas to make these portraits.
Speaker 1: When you say film plastics, you mean what by that?
Speaker 2: I mean any kind of like soft PLI A plastic
Speaker 2: that's not too.
Speaker 1: Thick, plastic bags.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's plastic bags. It's a lot of like food packaging,
Speaker 2: a lot of mailers, you know from online stores.
Speaker 1: Remember like the little window you cut out?
Speaker 2: No, not that that's cellulos. I don't really worry about
Speaker 2: that because I'm often looking for colors, not for clear plastic.
Speaker 1: Right too. You have a storage facility for this material?
Speaker 2: I mean I have a lot of bins, and my
Speaker 2: biggest problem is that people save it for me, and
Speaker 2: they give it to me and it's almost too much
Speaker 2: for me to process. I've had to ask and I
Speaker 2: only have like four or five people who save stuff
Speaker 2: for me. And then give it to me. But it's
Speaker 2: overwhelming because there's so much. And you know, I have
Speaker 2: one friend. Every time we go for a walk, she
Speaker 2: hands me like a bag of garbage because it's all
Speaker 2: the stuff her family, you know, the squash they eat
Speaker 2: and the fruit that they make smoothies from. It all
Speaker 2: comes in these plastic bags.
Speaker 1: So the first one you did, and when you say
Speaker 1: life size, what's the biggest issue made?
Speaker 2: So the biggest one I've made so far is the
Speaker 2: sixty foot sperm whale. It's sixty feet long.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, and you did this? Where where do you?
Speaker 1: Where's your studio?
Speaker 2: My studio is not that big post COVID. In my town, Middletown, Connecticut,
Speaker 2: the downtown business district was trying to get people onto
Speaker 2: main street because people had stopped going outside right And
Speaker 2: there was an old Woolworth's building and they let me
Speaker 2: get in there and use it a local kids museum
Speaker 2: built like some walls around the front of it. It's
Speaker 2: a place called kid City, and they let me use
Speaker 2: it as an open studio for six months, which was huge.
Speaker 2: I mean I never would have been able to do
Speaker 2: that in my living room. And I had just open
Speaker 2: studio days where people could show up. A lot of
Speaker 2: people would just walk by and kind of say, like,
Speaker 2: what is happening here?
Speaker 1: You know, they can see into this glass out receiver.
Speaker 2: Yeah, big glass windows.
Speaker 1: Spot a glass okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, big open front. And I had all the
Speaker 2: pieces that were done at that time. It was probably
Speaker 2: like twenty pieces up on the walls around and so
Speaker 2: people could come in and just like check it out
Speaker 2: or sow and you know, I would have people sew
Speaker 2: for like a few minutes, and I had some people
Speaker 2: who kept coming back over and over again for weeks,
Speaker 2: which was really cool.
Speaker 1: Well, but you worked your way toward the whale. You
Speaker 1: didn't go full on whale now, you know day three.
Speaker 2: Right, No, No, I had done probably thirty of them,
Speaker 2: you know by the time I tried with the whale
Speaker 2: and crammed as many, you know, of the larger pieces
Speaker 2: as I could into my home studio. So I had
Speaker 2: sharks like going around like walls, you know, two or
Speaker 2: three walls of the studio because they didn't fit otherwise.
Speaker 2: And I've definitely had them out in our living room.
Speaker 2: My family's like can you please put that away? I mean,
Speaker 2: I was trying to with this project. What I'm trying
Speaker 2: to do is make connections between all of us and
Speaker 2: this problem, because it's often in the scientific literature, they're
Speaker 2: often like kind of pointing a finger towards developing world
Speaker 2: and saying, of course, these are the dirtiest places in
Speaker 2: the world. These are the worst polluting countries. These rivers
Speaker 2: are the top ten dirtiest rivers. And it's always the
Speaker 2: global South. And I'm not an expert in India. After
Speaker 2: spending six months there.
Speaker 1: Why do you think it's that way there? Why when
Speaker 1: you see footage of like some river in India, it's
Speaker 1: just like a stream of garbage going.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I mean it is a huge problem there.
Speaker 2: They don't have the waste infrastructure that we have, so
Speaker 2: like their garbage isn't picked up the way are garbage is.
Speaker 2: And like in our community where we lived in India,
Speaker 2: you know, it's very common to gather all kinds of
Speaker 2: garbage and just burn it, you know, which would you
Speaker 2: know is not good at all for the people living
Speaker 2: nearby and certainly for the people who are burning that waste.
Speaker 1: Now, No, I want to also want to indicate what's
Speaker 1: the difference between a full bright and a full Bright
Speaker 1: nehrew I never heard of that before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the full Bright Neahrews are just the full Brights
Speaker 2: that happen in India.
Speaker 1: India.
Speaker 2: That's it. They get money from the American government and
Speaker 2: the Indian government and so they have like co naming
Speaker 2: of that grant over.
Speaker 1: What period of time were you in and out of India?
Speaker 2: I was there in twenty nineteen for six months. I
Speaker 2: took my whole family and we lived there for six months.
Speaker 1: What did your was your husband building shelving or cabinets
Speaker 1: or were working over there? No?
Speaker 2: No, no, he was not. I mean he checked out
Speaker 2: some interesting buildings there, but no, he was actually doing
Speaker 2: a graduate degree at that time. He was doing it
Speaker 2: the Yale School of Forestry. But he was able to
Speaker 2: do it remotely because he was at a point in
Speaker 2: his research where he was working independently.
Speaker 1: What did your children How old were they during the
Speaker 1: Indian phase?
Speaker 2: They were six, twelve, and fourteen. It was an incredible experience.
Speaker 1: What was it like for them? I'm sure I want
Speaker 1: to pivot to that. What was it like for them
Speaker 1: for that?
Speaker 2: You know, you tell your kids about the world, but
Speaker 2: you can't explain things to them in the same way
Speaker 2: of seeing it. So, I mean it really blew their mind.
Speaker 2: They got to go to school there. We lived in
Speaker 2: this big apartment tower. We were the only sort of
Speaker 2: like non Indian family in this group of three towers.
Speaker 2: And they were kind of like it was funny. They
Speaker 2: were kind of like locally famous, you know, because we
Speaker 2: stood out. You know, my husband's six', eight so he
Speaker 2: stands out. Anywhere but like traffic would stop when we
Speaker 2: were crossing streets, sometimes like people would hand me their
Speaker 2: baby at a mall And i'm, like what is happening
Speaker 2: here just to take a Picture that probably happens to
Speaker 2: you all the, time but it doesn't happen to.
Speaker 1: Me, WELL i, MEAN i don't. DON'T i don't. KNOW
Speaker 1: i got to go To india and find that it's
Speaker 1: going to. Happen what's going on for me In india
Speaker 1: because my career doing In. India but let me ask you,
Speaker 1: this which is THAT i don't understand why this country
Speaker 1: is struggling still with this. Issue, yeah why we're not
Speaker 1: investing so much money into you, know you want people
Speaker 1: to you can use glass for THESE i mean, again
Speaker 1: right when you have a little puff of air under your,
Speaker 1: wings here in terms of your. Hope then they tell, you,
Speaker 1: well you realize every cokecin is lined with, plastic, right
Speaker 1: there's a plastic, lining and they show you the work
Speaker 1: they do to take. Them and then also the plastic
Speaker 1: bag comes out and they peel it out of the
Speaker 1: cokecin and you're, like oh, god you know WHAT i,
Speaker 1: mean what is it you think about this country that
Speaker 1: you believe were so disengaged from our environmental?
Speaker 2: RESPONSIBILITY m, Yeah SO i teach environmental, policy and you,
Speaker 2: know you look at the history of polluters in our. Country.
Speaker 2: RIGHT a good example is ge putting PCBs in The Hudson.
Speaker 2: River so you look at that historically and you think
Speaker 2: what were people, Thinking like did they not? Know were they?
Speaker 2: Naive were they not paying? Attention AND i really feel
Speaker 2: like plastic is that for us? Now? Right you, know
Speaker 2: because what happened, eventually, right is that people cottoned onto
Speaker 2: it and said this is, unacceptable and it became a
Speaker 2: super fun, site, right and they're putting billions of dollars
Speaker 2: into cleaning it. Up but of course it's like unringing a.
Speaker 2: Bell you can't get all of that. Out and it's
Speaker 2: true for any kind of. Pollutant it's so much more
Speaker 2: efficient and. Inexpensive the GOLF bp just, forgotten just. Forgotten yeah,
Speaker 2: Right and it's like preventing it makes so much sense, environmentally,
Speaker 2: economically in every, way and yet our leaders don't are not.
Speaker 2: INTERESTED i would say our business leaders and our political
Speaker 2: leaders are both focused on the things that can get,
Speaker 2: them you, know clout in the short term and not
Speaker 2: the long. TERM i, MEAN i think a politician would
Speaker 2: would never say, like, well we're going to do, this
Speaker 2: it's going to cost a little bit more, money but
Speaker 2: your grandchildren and your great grandchildren are going to have
Speaker 2: clean air and soil and water because of. IT i
Speaker 2: think that's just, sadly like it's really hard to get
Speaker 2: people to. Care BUT i talk to people all the
Speaker 2: time who know about this issue and care about this,
Speaker 2: issue and they take a canvas back to the grocery,
Speaker 2: store but everything in there is like wrapped in. Plastic
Speaker 2: so it's like decisions were made long before you showed
Speaker 2: up at the grocery store that you seem to have
Speaker 2: no way of.
Speaker 1: Changing, well people aren't willing to change their lifestyle in that.
Speaker 1: Way they think the long term, effects let's, say of
Speaker 1: plastic are something that takes decades to have any real
Speaker 1: impact in your. Life but are people willing to trade
Speaker 1: off slowing down and living their life more thoughtfully in
Speaker 1: order to avoid plastic? Contamination in other, words your life
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons that enables you to live
Speaker 1: this kind of. Life is this? Product are people willing
Speaker 1: to make a? Switch i'm terrified to. SAY i don't believe.
Speaker 2: So. YEAH i think it depends right on some of.
Speaker 2: It BUT i think they're taking advantage of the fact
Speaker 2: that people are so overtired and being scheduled. Overscheduled. RIGHT
Speaker 2: a lot of plastic packaging for food is certainly convenience, based,
Speaker 2: Right SO i think it's hard to ask people who
Speaker 2: are already overburdened by other things to give up all of.
Speaker 2: That water bottles are different for, me, though because that's
Speaker 2: so it's so easy to stop drinking bottled. Water there
Speaker 2: are very few communities in the. Country there are, some of,
Speaker 2: course right where the water is not safe to, drink
Speaker 2: but for most of, us like our tap waters is. Great, yeah,
Speaker 2: YEAH i, Drink.
Speaker 1: YEAH i DRINK i drink filter tapwater old long.
Speaker 2: YEAH i, mean you're just taking a public resource and
Speaker 2: they've taken that public resource and they put it in a,
Speaker 2: bottle and they're charging you for it at a rate
Speaker 2: like higher than you know you would pay for gasoline
Speaker 2: for your, car and it's in a container that's like
Speaker 2: slowly breaking.
Speaker 1: Down, researcher activist and Artist Cat. Owens if you're enjoying this,
Speaker 1: conversation tell a friend and be sure to Follow here's
Speaker 1: The thing on the, iHeartRadio, Apps spotify or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your. Podcasts when we come, back Kat owens talks
Speaker 1: about her art stick process Creating entangled And ingested and
Speaker 1: how she works in a plastic based. Medium I'm Alec
Speaker 1: baldwin and this Is here's the. Thing in twenty, twenty
Speaker 1: Cat owens had plans to continue her research In, Uganda,
Speaker 1: colombia And, india but when her travel plans were disrupted
Speaker 1: by THE covid nineteen, pandemic she began exploring rivers closer to.
Speaker 1: Home it was these local waterways that inspired the idea
Speaker 1: for owens art Series entangled And. Ingested six years, Later
Speaker 1: owens has created one hundred and nineteen portraits of animals
Speaker 1: who have been harmed by plastic. Pollution some Of owen's
Speaker 1: pieces are created on a massive, scale including the sixty
Speaker 1: foot long sperm whale recently on display at The Bradley.
Speaker 1: AIRPORT i wondered where else has once had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to exhibit her.
Speaker 2: WORK i have had shows with many of the pieces in,
Speaker 2: them AND i have a few coming up next. Year
Speaker 2: i'm going to be at The Hartford Public library in
Speaker 2: the spring of twenty twenty six and at this place
Speaker 2: In West Palm, Beach florida in the summer of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six Called Resource depot that tries to keep waste
Speaker 2: out of the waste.
Speaker 1: Stream tell me you have a somewhat longer relationship With Resource,
Speaker 1: depot meaning what's the environmental what's the market for your
Speaker 1: environmentally based art In Palm, Beach. FLORIDA i don't. KNOW
Speaker 1: i mean you're about to find, out, RIGHT i.
Speaker 2: Find out the hard.
Speaker 3: Way.
Speaker 2: Yeah they had a, show like a group, show AND
Speaker 2: i applied for, it and then the director contacted me and,
Speaker 2: said you know what you should. Do we should do
Speaker 2: just a solo show with your work here because it's
Speaker 2: such a good match for what we. Do SO i was,
Speaker 2: like that sounds, great but my dream is to see
Speaker 2: all forty six of these pieces together in one, room you, know,
Speaker 2: LIKE i think that could really make an impact on
Speaker 2: how people think about this. PROBLEM i take it around to,
Speaker 2: schools and you, KNOW i have had exhibits in several.
Speaker 2: Places the big, whale the sperm whale has been at
Speaker 2: The Hartford airport for about a year and a.
Speaker 1: HALF i think all of your, art if you keep
Speaker 1: going in this direction with these large, pieces the only
Speaker 1: place to display your art would be like The Javits.
Speaker 2: Center, YEAH i, KNOW i need like A i don't,
Speaker 2: know like an airplane hangar that doesn't have anything in,
Speaker 2: it you, know something, huge Because i've got at least
Speaker 2: two whales over three whales over fifty feet And i'm
Speaker 2: working on right now the fin, whale which will ultimately
Speaker 2: be eighty feet, Long SO i need more. Space.
Speaker 1: Yeah is the size of the piece now become your?
Speaker 1: Obsessions like what's the? Biggest let me get some dinosaurs in.
Speaker 2: Here, well it's all based on the, Literature So i'm
Speaker 2: working down this list from the scientific, literature a list
Speaker 2: of all the different species that are affected by entanglement and.
Speaker 2: Ingestion so the biggest whale on my list is the fin.
Speaker 2: Whale it's not the biggest. Whale the blue whale is
Speaker 2: the biggest whale out, there but the fin whale is
Speaker 2: the biggest one on my. List.
Speaker 1: Yeah now when you approach a piece whale mouse in.
Speaker 1: Between when you're doing, that how does it? Work you
Speaker 1: on a? Canvas?
Speaker 2: Canvas cotton. CANVAS i buy it in six foot tall
Speaker 2: rolls that are ninety feet, long and then cut it
Speaker 2: down to the sizes THAT i. Need and, YEAH i
Speaker 2: cut down the, CANVAS i sketch out the. Animal if it's,
Speaker 2: SMALL i can just sort of eyeball it and do.
Speaker 2: It if it's a big, WHALE i have to do
Speaker 2: like a schematic Where i'm measuring. Computers, no just by.
Speaker 1: Hand, yeah then what are you applying to the?
Speaker 2: Canvas So i'm hand sewing all the. Scholastic, YEAH i
Speaker 2: sew the plastic onto the. Canvas BUT i, mean in terms.
Speaker 1: Of your identifying the material you, use it's all we cycle.
Speaker 2: Material, Yeah it's not the STUFF i find WHEN i
Speaker 2: go into a beach clean, up because that stuff is
Speaker 2: really gross and not. Healthy wouldn't want to be in
Speaker 2: a room with it or touch it very. Much but
Speaker 2: WHEN i started this, project i'd been saving this kind
Speaker 2: of film, plastic the film plastic that my family used
Speaker 2: BECAUSE i was often it's marked with those chasing arrows
Speaker 2: that say like please, recycle and you, think, okay this
Speaker 2: must be. RECYCLABLE i just have to figure out how
Speaker 2: to recycle. It so this is my. Field and it
Speaker 2: took me two years to realize that actually you can't
Speaker 2: recycle most of.
Speaker 1: It, now your husband did he wake up at one
Speaker 1: point and you woke up and he's like leaning over,
Speaker 1: you staring at, you and you, say what's his?
Speaker 3: Name?
Speaker 1: Michael and you, say what is, It? Michael and he,
Speaker 1: goes it's got to, stop, honey it's gotta. Stop stop
Speaker 1: bringing all this plastic into our.
Speaker 2: House he does get a little frustrated with. It sometimes he's,
Speaker 2: Like i'm, Honey i'm just so glad you're not into
Speaker 2: like metal, recycling because at least this can be like
Speaker 2: folded up and rolled up and put. Away LIKE i
Speaker 2: have a closet with a row of hangars on it
Speaker 2: and it just has like penguins anduffins and you, know
Speaker 2: dolphins hanging from.
Speaker 1: Them, now when you do the, piece you are sketching
Speaker 1: something in terms of. Color you're creating an image in
Speaker 1: whatever fashion computer or on a. Paper and then and
Speaker 1: then and you're bringing to the piece itself multi colored
Speaker 1: pieces of plastic to create a to can or whatever.
Speaker 1: Is you're going to make something with a lot of vibrant.
Speaker 2: Color, Correct, yes absolutely, So, Yeah i'm JUST i have
Speaker 2: it all divided out by. COLOR i have like a
Speaker 2: bin of, yellow a bin of, orange of purple, blue
Speaker 2: and THEN i just sort of make decisions As i'm sewing.
Speaker 2: It and SOMETIMES i use things like patterns from different,
Speaker 2: materials and SOMETIMES i use those to create depth or
Speaker 2: to build like the turtle behind.
Speaker 1: Me, yes it's. Gorgeous, oh thank, you.
Speaker 2: Gorgeous that's a green sea. Turtle and so sometimes that's
Speaker 2: like coffee bags that have like modeled coloration on, them,
Speaker 2: right so THAT i can sort of try to build
Speaker 2: like what a turtle shell actually looks like through pattern
Speaker 2: and color and that kind of.
Speaker 1: Thing, now you say you do exhibit in MUSEUMS i
Speaker 1: have is anything hanging? Anywhere? NOW i?
Speaker 2: Think, well so mostly local stuff happening right. Now The
Speaker 2: Bradley airport In Central connecticut has the sperm whale In.
Speaker 2: HARTFORD i have four or five pieces in The Connecticut Science.
Speaker 2: CENTER i have a place at The parks And Rec
Speaker 2: pool In. Middletown the indoor pool has a big orca
Speaker 2: THAT i made with elementary school kids from my. TOWN
Speaker 2: i went around to all the elementary schools and did.
Speaker 2: That and next Month i'm going to be In iceland
Speaker 2: for the month on an artist. Residency if anyone's in
Speaker 2: a Kirie, iceland they might find me there sewing. PUFFINS
Speaker 2: i guess probably in a harp. Seal what do you
Speaker 2: make in a harp? Seal but, Yeah i'm always trying
Speaker 2: to find more places to exhibit my work because the
Speaker 2: whole point of it IS i want. THIS i want
Speaker 2: people to make between this problem and their own, lives
Speaker 2: and then ideally get them to take political action about,
Speaker 2: it BECAUSE i really do think we can still influence
Speaker 2: our political systems and we need to.
Speaker 1: Try, now let's talk about your understanding through your other,
Speaker 1: work all of your credentials and so. FORTH i, mean
Speaker 1: what's happening in your, mind what's the biggest problem pollution
Speaker 1: wise in this? Country where's it coming?
Speaker 2: From, OH i mean it's coming from a million, communities,
Speaker 2: RIGHT i, mean we do have relatively good waste, management
Speaker 2: and yet you, know go outside any parking lot you've
Speaker 2: ever been, in and there's waste. Everywhere AND i go
Speaker 2: down WHEN i, travel you, know you see the, highway
Speaker 2: there's all kinds of litter all along the, streets and
Speaker 2: so a lot of, it whether intentionally or, unintentionally it
Speaker 2: gets out of the waste stream and then goes into.
Speaker 2: RIVERS i read a statistic the other day that said
Speaker 2: ten thousand tons of plastic in or The Great lakes every?
Speaker 2: Year just.
Speaker 1: Crazy did any of the work you've worked on address
Speaker 1: specific outcomes of plastic? Pollution have you gotten into that at?
Speaker 2: ALL i don't study sort of like the impact on.
Speaker 2: HEALTH i don't study microplastics or. NANOPLASTICS i know people who,
Speaker 2: do but we really don't know what the health impacts
Speaker 2: are going to be yet of accumulated contact with plastics over.
Speaker 2: Decades but you, know part of the. Issue so global
Speaker 2: markets all together produce over four hundred million tons of
Speaker 2: plastic every, year and their stated goal is to increase that, number.
Speaker 1: Right, right the petroleum, Industry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah and they absolutely want to increase that. Production
Speaker 2: so at this point in, time we're not even talking
Speaker 2: about what are the important uses of this? Material, Right,
Speaker 2: like certainly there are important uses of this. Material it
Speaker 2: is all around. Us it's there's a reason it's so.
Speaker 2: Popular it's, inexpensive and it's well because we're only counting
Speaker 2: like how much it, costs not how much it costs
Speaker 2: for its full. Life but you, know we're not even
Speaker 2: having a conversation, about like what's the most important use
Speaker 2: of this. MATERIAL i was with a friend at the hospital.
Speaker 2: Recently you, know hospitals use lots of single use. Plastics that's, great,
Speaker 2: Right but then they brought the patient water and it
Speaker 2: was in a styrofoam, cup AND i was, like are
Speaker 2: you kidding?
Speaker 1: Me like WHEN i see people back packages with, styrofoam
Speaker 1: the peanuts that they call them Styro i'm, Like i'm
Speaker 1: never going to speak to you again for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life now that you sent my birthday present
Speaker 1: in the styrofoam.
Speaker 2: Peanuts but the steam come out of my. Ears oh my.
Speaker 1: God but the plastic, industry like the tobacco, industry the same.
Speaker 1: Thing they know what's going, on they know what's. Happening
Speaker 1: they know what the deleterious effects of all of us.
Speaker 2: ARE i, mean in their moo is kind of like
Speaker 2: to throw a little money towards some vague recycling programs
Speaker 2: and then continued to produce and ninety nine percent of
Speaker 2: plastic is still made with virgin fossil fuels because that's
Speaker 2: the deepest and the easiest way to do. It and
Speaker 2: so they're actually things that they could do to have
Speaker 2: to lessen the, impact BUT i don't see a lot
Speaker 2: of companies that are really trying to do. That there are,
Speaker 2: some like food companies who seem to be making choices
Speaker 2: and packaging to get away from, plastic which is exciting to,
Speaker 2: see but it's a tiny. Amount and things that used
Speaker 2: to be you, KNOW i encounter packaging all the time
Speaker 2: from cat, litter dog, food bird. Seed all of that
Speaker 2: is like in plastic, now and it wasn't that long
Speaker 2: ago when all of that came, in like multi layered, paper,
Speaker 2: right and and for most people in the, world like
Speaker 2: that's a fine way to package that, good, right you,
Speaker 2: know we're, yes you might have like mice get into your,
Speaker 2: garage but for most of us it's it's it's an
Speaker 2: okay packaging. Type but it has become the, standard right
Speaker 2: where our expectations if something's good or if it you,
Speaker 2: know we want it to look a certain. Way it's
Speaker 2: going to come wrapped in.
Speaker 1: PLASTIC i want to mention one more, thing which is
Speaker 1: just for people to, understand you have these pictures and
Speaker 1: this beautiful artwork you do with these materials and this
Speaker 1: kind of you, know obviously without it goes without saying
Speaker 1: unorthodox methodology with what you're, Doing but you ever get
Speaker 1: sick of, It you ever sit there and GO i
Speaker 1: want to get back into policy and try to fix.
Speaker 2: This, WELL i mean two things. THERE i don't get
Speaker 2: sick of. It, like it's very calming and meditative practice
Speaker 2: for me to, sew SO i really enjoy that. Process
Speaker 2: but at the same time a huge Materials, yeah there's
Speaker 2: a lot of, sewing BUT i hate the. Materials it's very.
Speaker 2: Weird as an, artist usually you, know you're excited about
Speaker 2: the oil paints and the materials you're, using the. Watercolors
Speaker 2: it's very weird to be spending so much time with
Speaker 2: something that you really. Hate BUT i, THINK i, mean
Speaker 2: part of the REASON i took on this project is
Speaker 2: BECAUSE i was tired of just communicating with other scientists
Speaker 2: about this, issue BECAUSE i think it's no fun to
Speaker 2: talk about it with a bunch of people who already
Speaker 2: know everything about, it, Right LIKE i want to connect
Speaker 2: with people and then get them to contact their leaders
Speaker 2: and demand something.
Speaker 1: BETTER i just want to, say first of, all thank
Speaker 1: you for doing this with. ME i feel like this
Speaker 1: is the one we've got to. Solve we've got to, solve,
Speaker 1: yes because it's really REALLY i think doing a lot
Speaker 1: of more importantly unseen, things unknown. Things who knows what's
Speaker 1: going to be the plastic the bill we're going to
Speaker 1: get handed twenty five years from. Now so thank you so, much.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having. ME i really appreciate.
Speaker 1: It my thanks to Kat. Owens this episode was recorded
Speaker 1: AT Cdm studios In New York. City we're produced By Kathleen,
Speaker 1: Russo Zach, MacNeice And victoria De. Martin our engineer Is Frank.
Speaker 1: Imperial our social media manager Is Danielle. Gingrich I'm Alec.
Speaker 1: Baldwin here's the thing that is brought to you By iHeart.
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