The Scottish Maritime Museum will screen a documentary which Sir David Attenborough calls “One of the most important films of our time” and host of range of climate change activities on Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 September as part of Climate Fringe Week.
Screenings of the fascinating and eye-opening documentary ‘A Plastic Ocean’ will be one of the highlights of the weekend of activities at the Scottish Maritime Museum on Irvine Harbourside as the Museum helps raise awareness of the impact of climate change on our coastal region and waters in advance of COP26 in November.
The 2016 documentary directed by journalist Craig Leeson, explores the latest science which proves how plastics, once they enter the oceans, break up into small particulates that enter the food chain where they attract toxins like a magnet. These toxins are stored in seafood’s fatty tissues and eventually consumed by us.
Saturday 25 September
On Saturday, the Museum will screen a 20 minute edit of the documentary at 11am, 12.30pm, 2pm and 3.30pm.
Visitors will also enjoy one of the Museum’s two brand new exhibitions, Ocean Posters Against Plastic Pollution, and hear from the exhibition’s curator Dr John Ennis.
Dr Ennis will be on hand during the day to chat to visitors about this student-led project which calls for change in the way we interact with the environment.
Sunday 26 September
On Sunday, the Museum will screen the full length documentary at 11am and 2pm.
Visitors will also find Stitches for Survival crafting in the Museum reception area from 1pm – 4pm on Sunday.
The Ayrshire ‘craftivists’ are making part of a 1.5-mile-long knitted scarf, a message for the negotiators at COP26 urging them to take bold and binding action together.
The length of the scarf represents the 1.5°c target in the Paris Agreement. This has been calculated as the maximum temperature rise the planet can tolerate before the effects of climate change become catastrophic.
After COP26 the scarf will be repurposed into blankets for refugee communities. Some of the more creative sections will be kept for an exhibition and ongoing campaigning.
All Weekend
‘A Plastic Ocean’ screenings throughout the weekend will be accompanied by a Plastic Pollution Poster Workshop where everyone can make posters inspired by the lifecycle of different plastic products using coffee cups and toothbrushes.
Visitors over the weekend can also explore the Museum’s other new exhibition, Glass Ships in Bottles.
Also on show in the Museum Courtyard on Harbour Road is artist Justin Vibert Wilson’s seven metre long, life size basking shark made of recycled materials.
The shark, which represents what is the largest fish in British waters and the second largest fish in the world after the whale shark, was created for the Giving Nature a Home project in the run up to COP26 in collaboration with Garnock Connections, the RSPB and Climate Change Scotland.
The sculpture highlights the issues of plastic pollution in the oceans and waterways of the world. The choice of materials represents the discarded packaging and fishing industry litter that ends up in the ocean causing problems for the fish and mammals that inhabit that environment.
Climate Fringe Week celebrates and supports all the ways people can engage together as part of an organisation, with friends, family or wider community, to bring about climate action.
Exhibitions and screenings are included in Museum admission.
Up to three children go FREE with each adult admission ticket
To book admission tickets visit the advance ticket page HERE
Issued on behalf of the Scottish Maritime Museum by
Joanna Harrison, Mobile: 07884 187404
