In the summer 2011, Pamela Longobardi (US) swam to a massive sea cave from Liakas with Maria Rigatou (GR). It was immense and filled with many pieces of plastic, some very large. The two women swam out several large bags of material and large plastic objects. For Drifters Project/Kefalonia Phase II, Longobardi plans to clean the entire cave with a team of swimmers and to remove all the material and transport it to the Ionion Center of Art and Culture to document, analyze and create a single large-scale art installation in the gallery.
In July 2012 the materials will be floated out of the cave as a giant raft of plastic, a floating island chain transported by swimmers – Longobardi, Sarina Basta (NY/Paris), a NY-based cultural producer and curator of the large-scale project in Monaco OCEANOMANIA, and Maria Rigatou, a musician living in Kefalonia.
This action will be documented by Nickos Myrtou and a team of underwater and above water videographers to create a film that will be projected in the gallery with the array of plastic that is removed and sorted. (View the final film here.) A forensic study will be done of the modern-day archeology of the cave, with statistical analysis, object identification of all components, and presentation of the findings. Claudia Lamas Cornejo (GE/PE), a Berlin-based culture manager and curator of the environmental exhibition project PACKET-SOUP, will provide commentary by live internet connection from Savvy Contemporary Gallery in Berlin.
Longobardi will then conduct a forensic study of the modern-day archeology of the cave, with statistical analysis, object identification of all components, and presentation of the findings. The array of components will be presented in a large-scale installation in the Ionion Center for Art and Culture, Kefalonia.
Along with Longobardi, the artist and Plastic Pollution Coalition co-founder Dianna Cohen (US) will in addition display her abstract paintings made of plastic bags in half of the gallery space. Dianna Cohen’s maternal grandfather was born on Kefalonia.