Performance Art – The disposable mask in the sea
I normally capture the uniqueness of a living being in my paintings. This painting is different: here I depict realistically what has now become normality.
Inga Prasse
From October to December 2021 Inga Prasse worked on her art project „Bildpaten für die Ostseestation Travemünde“ in front of the Ostseestation Travemünde and on the beach promenade. On site, she worked on her painting of a jellyfish floating in the sea next to a used disposable mask. The jellyfish will spend a maximum of one year in the Baltic Sea, but the disposable mask will take 450 years to completely decompose.
Inga Prasse wanted to use the picture to draw attention to the lack of environmental education among many people, but also to make a difference locally.
She was supported in her art project by the Museum of Nature and the Environment in Lübeck, where the artwork was always on display in the „Of Rivers and the Sea“ exhibition when she was not working on it.
By means of sponsorships, interested people were able to purchase a part of the painting with an amount of their choice – they became picture sponsors for her painting. A total of 41 people became picture sponsors for the painting „Jellyfish and Mask“. The artist donated the total sum of €1150 1:1 to the Ostseestation Travemünde on 12.01.2022.
The money went towards the „Plan-it Plastic“ project from Ostseegymnasium Timmendorfer Strand, where construction fences were retrieved from the River Trave. Together with the All-We-Shape from Lübeck, the pupils melted down the fences and sawed out fish from the resulting plastic sheets, which they used to build a sculpture.
