IMPACT
Mandy Barker’s work crosses the boundaries of art, science, environment, education and politics. Since 2010, Barker has exhibited her visual work globally, supported by international talks, conferences and workshops, at both an educational and political levels. She does not see her images as the end of her responsibility to engage, and continues to strive to make an impact beyond the image. Barker’s aim is to engage as many people as possible on as many different platforms, with the issue of marine plastic debris, highlighting current scientific research to inspire action, leading to changes in policy.
Education – workshops
Barker’s work is used for educational purposes around the world at all levels; as part of the school curriculum for both child and adult learning including, textbooks that have translated her projects from Pidgin to Hebrew, The National Curriculum in England to FTD Education in Brazil, by Phd students, to scientific academic Journals. Her work is also presented at international marine debris conferences, and virtual platforms tackling plastic pollution such as the UN Ocean Decade Network website.
Over the past 17 years Barker has worked with the younger generation and the public, delivering programmes and workshops around the world, in schools, colleges, universities, and community centres, building connections in an effort to create change in a particular region, country or island. Workshops have included in the Solomon Islands, Philippines, San Francisco, Florida, Spain, Ireland and the UK.
Solomon Islands
Supported by the British High Commission in Honiara together with the British Council New Zealand and Dreamcast Theatre Solomon Islands, students aged between 9 to 11 years, worked remotely with renowned UK artist Mandy Barker to create pieces of artwork made from everyday plastics. The workshop aimed to use art to connect with young people, raise awareness of the issue, change behaviours toward plastic pollution, and protect marine life.
Children from several schools recovered plastic from their local beaches, and following a workshop Mandy Barker created their own artworks for exhibition.
Final artwork exhibited at the Dreamcast Theatre Art Hub, Honiara to engage the local community with the plastic issue, 2022.
Solomon Islands implements ban on single-use plastics, 01 September 2023.
Sirius Arts Centre Ireland
Barker was granted a residency at the Sirius Art Centre, Cobh, Cork, Ireland where she created the series ‘Beyond Drifting: Imperfectly Known Animals’. The following year she was invited back to exhibit the work in the gallery. Local schools visited the exhibition and to further enhance their experience and understanding of the plastic issue were given questionnaires to complete and they also took part in practical workshops.
Questionnaire and workshops with schools alongside Barker’s exhibition Beyond Drifting at Sirius Art Centre, 2017.
Plastic Passages - The Phillippines
https://www.emergingislands.com/projects/follow-the-water
“We tracked the movement of plastic along La Union’s waterways and collaborated with the artist Mandy Barker for her new work, entitled ‘DIP Sea KISS,’ part of a larger body of work about marine plastic debris. Through an in-depth photography workshop, we staged a conversation between the Global North and South, around our experiences being caught in the climate change struggle.
The intensive, weeklong photography workshop comprised of eight students from diverse backgrounds around the Philippines: photojournalists, a university professor, conceptual photographers, and even a science researcher. The workshop, headed by photographers Mandy Barker and Hannah Reyes Morales, was our way of equipping other storytellers with the practical knowledge and conceptual rigor needed to tell a story that goes beyond the cliched understanding of an issue like plastic pollution. We wanted to help our students open their gazes so they could capture a deeper, more holistic picture of the daily life and culture of our coastal communities.
The final work of the workshop students was exhibited in San Juan, La Union, in the Philippines alongside Mandy Barker’s creation, and offered a nuanced look into the global problem of plastic waste, with perspectives from both members of the Global North and South.”
Workshop and community engagement through final exhibition in San Juan, La Union, Philippines, Earth Day April 2022.
Political Engagement
Delivering talks at the highest levels; for the European Union, at political festivals, for government, Barker aims to engage policymakers and corporate organisations with the evidence needed to change. Talks have included at the opening Session for EU Greenweek 2021, in Brussels with Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. On behalf of the British Embassy at the political festival Almedalen, Gotland, Sweden and at the EuroConference GlobalCapital Sustainable & Responsible Capital Markets Forum in Amsterdam.
Barker’s work has been promoted and displayed by the Italian Parliament Deputees Chamber, Complesso di Vicolo Valdina, Rome, and by the British Council for COP 26 / 27 / 28, and at the United Nations Ocean Conference, La Baleine, Nice, France, 2025. Commissioned by Greenpeace, Barker’s work was also presented at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.
Italian Parliament, Rome
A presentation in the Italian Parliament Camera dei Deputati & Complesso di Vicolo Valdina, Rome with National Geographic, a solo presentation as part of the ‘Planet or Plastic’ touring exhibition. “To enhance the discussion of the measure regarding the recovery of waste in the sea, in internal waters, and for the promotion of a circular economy continues in the Chamber, following the favourable opinion of @CD_”
Italian Parliament Rome, Italy October / November 2019.
The Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh
The Beluga II Greenpeace Expedition set sail along Scotland’s west coast during the summer of 2018 to investigate and document the impact of plastic pollution in these coastal areas. Barker was invited to join the expedition to recover and photograph plastic pollution in the remote areas of the Inner Hebrides. Her image ‘WHERE? – No one wears a watch’ was presented to Secretary for the Environment, Roseanna Cunningham at the Scottish Parliament, a day before the minister’s statement: Stemming the Plastic Tide, along with scientific samples of plastic recovered during the Beluga II expedition, in an effort to bring to the forefront the Impact of Single-use Plastics on Land and in our Seas - Amendment S5M-10307.
Image presented to Secretary for the Environment, Roseanna Cunningham, 2018.
Pontifical Academy for Life - talk with Mons. Vincenzo Paglia
Reflections on the work of Mandy Barker and the thoughts of Pope Francis.
Talk with Mons. Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontificia Academia per la Vita (Pontificial Academy for Life) and Mandy Barker, about the thoughts of Pope Francis. ‘Oceans: Beauty and destruction’, a discussion alongside Barker’s exhibition at the Cathederal Museum, Museu Diocesà de Barcelona, in the Sala Renaixentista, Casa de l’Almoina.
Talk with Mons. Vincenzo Paglia about the thoughts of Pope Francis, September 2024.
Collaborations
Stanford University Virtual Reality Experience
‘Ripple: the unintended life of plastics at sea’.
In 2018, a team of eight Stanford University students, under the guidance of Professor Geri Migielicz, collaborated with Mandy Barker to create the virtual reality experience, ‘Ripple: the unintended life of plastics at sea’. The experience immerses viewers into a galaxy of waste, to show how ubiquitous, insidious and long-lasting plastic can be in our world, with Barker’s images as the basis of the creation. The project was written in A-Frame, a web framework from Mozilla that uses Web.VR, designed by Dylan Freedman to bring virtual reality to any web device, including laptops, phones, and virtual reality headsets, including Google Cardboard.
Within the experience, viewers learn how long it takes for items to decompose - it might take 600 years for a discarded fishline to break down while a plastic toy could take thousands of years. The virtual reality experience ends with the locations where Barker collected the plastic objects and the location of the Pacific plastic gyre, a large area in the ocean littered with plastic debris. The team hopes the experience will spur individuals to take the problem of plastic more seriously. It is important not only to understand but to see and feel the fate of all the items we throw away. We may spend ten minutes drinking from a plastic water bottle, but it could live on in the ocean for eternity, claiming the lives of marine creatures along the way.
“To be fully immersed and focused on the plastic issue, to see recovered objects and pieces of plastic come to ‘life’ floating by and enjoyed alongside music and spoken information educates and encourages the viewer to become involved in an extraordinary way, and in a way that a 2-dimensional photograph perhaps is not able to do,” says Barker.
View experience here - https://rippleplastic.netlify.app
The experience is viewable to anyone and anywhere. It will whisk viewers away from the consumer-driven world, in which plastic is a staple, to exist for a few minutes in an ocean of discarded plastic.
‘Ripple: the unintended life of plastics at sea’, VR experience connecting viewers within the exhibition ‘Plastic Ocean’ at Impressions Gallery, Bradford, 2019.
CBBC ‘Get Arty’
A collaboration commissioned by Ranga Bee Productions for CBBC is a children’s art show broadcast on BBC. Each episode is an exciting adventure for young creatives to get crafty and use their imagination.
“This episode will showcase Mandy Barker, an artist known for her innovative use of materials. Mandy will demonstrate how to transform plastic waste into beautiful art pieces. This segment will inspire young artists to think about recycling and how everyday items can be turned into something special.”
Creation of bespoke image for Get Arty children’s programme, December 2024.
Science
Barker works with scientists to enable wider engagement of their research, giving science a visual voice that the public can understand and connect with. In turn her work undertaken on expeditions has contributed to scientific research papers.
University of Plymouth
Professor Richard Thompson OBE, FRS speaking as part of Barker’s presentation at the Royal Geographical Society, July 2026.
Adrift Lab Science
https://adriftlab.org/about/our-research/
Over the years Barker has worked with Adrift Lab Science based in Tasmania and Natural History Museum, UK. Collaborations have included a residency on Lord Howe Island shadowing scientists researching the ingestion of plastic by shearwater seabirds and also an expedition with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office to Henderson Island in the South Pacific. Since creating several series of work on expedition, alongside scientists Dr Jennifer Lavers and Dr Alex Bond, Barker has gone on to present the work at a global level, through exhibitions, talks, publications and community engagements, in over 30 different countries, and with some permanent installations.
Barker works with a responsibility to pass on what she has seen, to the rest of the world, with the evidence to encourage action.