This is a photography and editorial project done during my masters course, in which I got very interested in sustainability. Inspired by the talk “Never turn your back to the ocean” by Sophie Thomas of the design studio Thomas.Matthews, I decided to design a book to raise awareness about pollution in oceans and rivers, specially plastic pollution. Through photography and research, the book explores the kind of rubbish that is dumped everyday (in this case into the river Thames) and the consequences that this is having on our oceans. None of the images were manipulated so people could appreciate how all the waste blends into the environment, looking harmless and unimportant. The same idea of showing the raw material was applied to the text. Inspired by the quote associated with the mafia to state that someone’s dead body is was thrown into a river, “Sleeping with the Fishes” makes allusion to all the “bodies” that can be found not only in the Thames, but all around the world.
Nicolas Aguirre 