A plastic whale and its environmental mission

The sperm whale lady that can recently be admired in the stairwell of the BRG SolarCity is around four meters long. “Speedy” was created from more than 500 plastic bottles and other waste products such as leftover fabric. It was created by ten art teachers during a training course at the University of Education. After two weekend shifts, the artwork, which will be part of a traveling exhibition, was ready.

At the start in the BRG SolarCity

The whale should be a visible sign that we are dealing with the topics of sustainability, avoiding plastic waste and pollution of the seas. At the same time, the created tutorial provides building instructions for anyone interested, says project manager Birgit Kriegner, who teaches art education and handicrafts at the BRG SolarCity.

The project goes back to the Kids Save Ocean initiative, which was brought to life by Peter Hill – a former Viennese colleague of Kriegner. The inspiration for the Linz figure was the “Last Whale”, which is being shown for the third time in Vienna’s Haus des Meeres.

The students were not involved in the construction of the Linz counterpart, but they did help to collect the plastic bottles needed for the implementation. That would have an initial sensitizing effect, reports Kriegner: “They saw how quickly you could be surrounded by a mountain of PET bottles.”

The construction process, which started with a character whose outline was projected onto the wall, was fun, even if there were some challenges. It wasn’t that easy to make “realistic” eyes, for example – but it finally worked with the help of plastic Christmas tree balls.

The whale figure is now to be integrated more into the lessons, and “Speedy” will soon receive support for his climate mission in the form of a plastic turtle. If Kriegner has his way, exhibition locations away from educational institutions are also conceivable in the future. However, there is no lack of initial contact points simply because the teachers involved teach at schools in Upper Austria, Salzburg and Lower Austria. Potential stops on the “whale trip” are therefore the Petrinum or the BRG Landwiedstraße.

Kriegner is particularly pleased that the students are very careful with the hanging figure and that the plastic bottles are no longer left lying around in the classroom – thanks to “Speedy”.

More information about the project can be found here.