Flotsam used 5000 plastic water bottles, How About Studio

Poster catalogued common plastics in the ocean, Studio Smäll

Selfridges Project Ocean Exhibition and Water Bar, 2015

As part of the Project Ocean initiative, a long-term partnership between Selfridges and The Zoological Society of London to protect the marine environment, we collaborated on the campaign ‘Be Part of the Sea Change – see through the plastics problem’. Our brief included curating an exhibition in the Oxford Street store exploring marine plastic pollution and illuminating alternative futures through a series of projects by artists and designers including Studio Swine and animator Alice Dunseath proposing how marine plastic, now considered rubbish, might be harvested as a valuable resource.

To reinforce Selfridges’ decision to stop selling single-use plastic water bottles in its stores and to promote alternative solutions, we collaborated with design studio Arabeschi di Latte to create a Water Bar which encouraged visitors to reconsider the everyday ritual of drinking water and to imagine life without the plastic water bottle. At the Ocean Awards 2016, Project Ocean was honoured with the Corporate and Social Responsibility Award. 

Emerging from Project Ocean 2015, the ZSL #OneLess campaign, launched in partnership with Marine CoLABoration, is striving to reduce the amount of single-use plastic water bottles entering the ocean from the city of London and championing refill culture in the city.

Photography Paola Pieroni and Andrew Meredith