The works of da Vinci and Claude Monet are among the few masterpieces etched in our minds forever, but their physicality is not. But when plastic is the medium of choice, the artwork is almost certainly guaranteed to last into the next millennium.
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At the entrance of the Blue Hole stands Rachel Peters' Modern Midden. Made of plastic materials collected from local beaches the colourful assemblage will stand for thousands of years and is a striking reminder of what is creating lasting destruction on beaches.
"I've been doing art for 15 years and I live near the beach and walk along the shore most days," Ms Peters said.
"I've been picking up rubbish and collecting different colours and I've always been interested in what turns up.
"An expression of interest was put out for someone to create a piece to draw people's attention to plastic on our beaches.
"I started work on this and it took a couple of months to put it all together."
Commissioned by the Plastic Free Alliance, the artwork was funded by the Glenelg-Hopkins Catchment Management Authority through funding from the Australian Government's National Landcare Program. The project was supported by community groups including Fishcare South West.
"A lot of local conservation groups came together to raise awareness and formed the Plastic Free Alliance," president of Fishcare South West Justin Harzmeyer said.
"From the meetings we discussed what we could do to raise awareness about the environment. We also did research to see what things had been done in Australia and around the world.
"We received some funding and decided upon creating some artwork. Throughout the process we worked closely with Rachel to see what we could do and what was needed for the piece.
"With school groups and community help we collected plastic on our local beaches throughout area from Levy's Point all the way to Logans Beach."
Completed in early May, the outdoor assemblage is set in resin, another type of plastic, which will hopefully allow the piece to remain undamaged from nature's elements.
"There are a lot of groups concerned about plastic here in Warrnambool and there's been a lot of awareness about what's washing up on our beaches," Ms Peters said.
"I called it Modern Midden because midden is an Aboriginal word meaning the remnants left behind by civilisation. This piece shows what will get dug of our community in thousands of years time - plastic."
Ms Peters also wrote a poem to the style of Dr Seuss' 'Oh the places we will see' explaining the artwork and to cast a warning of the dangers of plastic and waste ending up in the environment.
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