I often see oyster shells on Edinburgh beaches & know they used to be often eaten around the Forth, but now they’re rare here because of what humans have done. I wanted to explore their beauty & how we share some of our history with the common oyster.
I learned so much that was interesting I made a wee book to hold it all! A brilliant thing is that oysters help clean seawater by filtering out particles and nutrients as they feed – and one oyster can filter over 50 litres of water a day!
I made collograph prints on paper – one bigger print and a concertina book. I used a Tetrapak carton from the recycling bin to carve out the designs and inked these Tetrapak plates with black ink. In the concertina book I added handwritten text.
The print is 21 x 30cm; the concertina book pages are 15 x 21cm, and the unfolded concertina book is 15 x 83cm.