beyond salvation I: Safety First

Exhibited 2025, VII London Art Biennale. Royal Society of Marine Artists.

View at The Gagliardi Gallery, Chelsea. London UK.

Death comes early on the shipbreaking beaches of Bangladesh.

Giant ships, workhorses of the rapacious consumer economy have come to the beach at Chittagong to die. But even useless and leaching toxins, oil and chemicals they are still worth more than the lives of the humans breaking them. With little to no safety equipment scores of men, often beginning work before they are 13 years old are killed and maimed each year. Their life expectancy remains a full 20 years lower than the national average.

Is an industry that profits from salvaging the carcasses of its ships at the expense of the poorest people on the planet and its ecosystems itself beyond salvation?

 2025. Pen and ink on paper. 84 x 41 cm