National Aquarium

Commissioned by the National Aquarium, I created a 16-foot hammerhead shark for Baltimore’s free art festival, Artscape.

The bare pipe frame under a work tent, rolls of chicken wire waiting behind it

This participatory sculpture invited Artscape attendees to help create the piece. They used strips of recycled plastic water bottles and wove them through the form of the shark.

A National Aquarium sign reading "Use Your Bottles to Build! This 16-foot hammerhead shark can't build itself - pitch in with local artist Kasey Jones"

Close up of the woven bottle strips over the wire, a Fiji label among them

The finished shark in daylight, seen from the side on the festival lawn

The shark from the front quarter, its hammer head and dorsal fin against the trees

The shark on its stands at dusk, children looking up at it

The shark at dusk from the front, festival tents behind it

The whole shark at dusk from the side, marquee tents behind it

The project was intended to raise awareness about how our plastic waste is affecting animals at the top of the food chain.

A National Aquarium sign reading "Your Resource, Your Responsibility - about 80 percent of marine litter originates on land, and most of it is plastic"

The shark was later transformed into a kinetic sculpture for the Kinetic Sculpture Race in Baltimore, hosted by the American Visionary Art Museum.

The kinetic shark side on across a brick plaza, its three bodies riding on bottle-shaped floats above the bicycle frames

The kinetic version on the street, riders pedalling it forward

The kinetic shark from the side, its jaws open, moving down the road

The shark afloat in the harbour, a crowd watching from the rocks

The shark out on the open water, city buildings behind it

Cresting the mud hill, the rider's arms up and the crowd cheering

Building the shark.