designosaur: creations for cetaceans

Meet Lulu, our entry to the World Cetacean Alliance's (WCA) 'Untangled' Project. The WCA is based in Brighton and their aim with the 'Untangled' Project is to raise awareness of Ghost Netting.

What's Ghost Netting I hear you say? Well it's any fishing gear, from ropes to nets, that is discarded from the boat and ends up in the sea. This is a huge problem as you can imagine for our sea life, as they become entangled and can't get free. Lulu is an orca (extra fact, did you know orcas are DOLPHINS not whales?! - mind blown) that got caught in discarded nets off the coast of the Hebrides at the beginning of this year and is the inspiration behind our piece.

Ghost netting can occur for a whole host of reasons from nets breaking from the boat and it being too costly for the crew to retrieve them, to nets becoming broken and then costing the fisherman money to put into landfill when they return to land, so they are discarded at sea. Things can also fall from the boat in high seas, a whole reel of brand new nylon rope was found on Brighton beach recently!

There is a recycling centre where they will pay for the materials though, and awareness of this is one of the things the WCA is doing in their project.

ropes attached to the pier

removing netting from the seaweed on Brighton beach

So Lulu was our response to what is happening to our local sea life, we walked along Brighton beach and in just a short stretch (between the Palace Pier and the West Pier) we found all of the rope pictured plus much more which we removed from the beach - this was after the beach had been cleaned!

Lulu is made from 3 mm laser cut acrylic, with an extra layer of 3 mm in clear acrylic with teal ink rubbed into engraved lines to create this 3D net design. She is hung from a short 40 cm 'found' teal nylon rope with silver plated findings and clasp with a designosaur toggle.

There's only one....