Cathy's Art Diary

Striking installation at the Oxo Tower as part of the Totally Thames Festival by school children from Nigeria. Organised by the Five Cowries Arts Education Initiative based in Lagos, bringing together children, young people and teachers from across Nigeria with partners around the world to educate and raise awareness of water pollution crisis. It consisted of brightly painted jerry cans painted by the children hanging along the loggia at the bottom of the tower. They looked bright and colourful and made you stop to read what they about. Unfortunately I missed the sister exhibition outside City Hall of photograph exhibition of the project. Closes 30 September 2019

Thought provoking installation at the Oxo Tower by Maria Areco as part of the Totally Thames festival. This consisted of a series of wire cages each filled with a different type of plastic rubbish pulled out of the Thames so there was one of bottles, another of cups and one of ropes. Some of the cages were filled with items of the same colour. All the plastic was collected over just one year from 40 beaches along the tidal river. The work moved to other locations around London and I’d have liked to see it on another venue but ran out of time. It was quite striking to think of how the rubbish had got into the river and the sheer quantity of it. Evidently at night it was being specially lit which would have given it another interesting dimension.   Closes on 30 September 2017