Ripples of Change

An ecoartivist exhibition by Francesca Busca

8-28/2/26

PV: 8/2/26 11am - late. BYOG and get 10% off

Ripples of Change is composed entirely of ghost gear, ocean waste, and related debris recovered through the Project One Wave network. Each piece is a layered protest — against disposability, against detachment — and a call to reimagine our relationship with the natural world.

The series, “The Maremnants”, channels the colours and textures of Scotland through its nemesis: synthetic waste. Works such as Ripples of Change were created using ghost gear recovered during Project One Wave missions, while others — like Scottish Texture— are composed of curious individual plastic items of consumption, found during our May beach clean and contributed by fellow members of the network. These materials, once discarded, now mimic seagrass beds, mossy glens, tidal movement, and coastal textures — imitating nature and exposing how deeply and inescapably plastic pollution has infiltrated and integrated with it.

Through reproducing the movement water makes when an object from the land world penetrates the marine one, she is piercing the barrier of understanding between these two realms. At the same time, this penetration carries the hope of further consequences in our own world — just as the ripple effect spreads outward, it may bring empathy, awareness, and the possibility of change. Each work becomes both a gesture and a catalyst: a reminder that even the smallest disturbance can generate waves of connection, dialogue, and difference.

This series embodies Francesca’s ongoing research into ways to foster empathy with the marine realm. By transforming familiar objects — dental floss, empty shell cases, plastic components of everyday life — through a process of material deconstruction into marine abstractions, she appeals to shared experiences and to the instinctive connection we feel with beauty. These underwater worlds are reimagined as those above — landscapes we know, textures we recognise — inviting us to reconnect with what we have forgotten, and to recognise what we are losing.

Through Ripples of Change, Francesca seeks to sensitise viewers to life in all its forms — especially the ocean, which remains one of our most vital and vulnerable ecosystems. Her work advocates a shift from an anthropocentric society to a holistic one centred on the common good. This is eco‑artivism in motion: a ripple bound to become a wave — of awareness, of dialogue, of systemic change.