Washed Ashore at the Virginia Aquarium

There's just about a month left to see the Washed Ashore exhibit at the Virginia Aquarium in Virginia Beach and it's one that definitely needs to be seen. The giant sculptures that make up the exhibit -- a friendly seal, giant jellyfish, massive coral reefs -- are, at a distance, beautiful and whimsical. But as you look closer and start to pick out familiar objects -- bottle caps, fishing bobbers, soda bottles -- you realize that they are all made out of trash washed up on the beach. And the scope of how polluted are oceans have become is even more striking.



We appreciated how interactive the exhibit was -- you can touch and play with most of the pieces, including a set of drums made of huge blocks of styrofoam (which was fun, but imagining these littering the shore of our favorite beaches is just mind-boggling). There were also stations scattered around the room where visitors could see the effect of all of the trash on the animals and plants that live in the ocean, and a table showing off some of the stranger things that have been pulled out of the waves (shoe skeletons, what?)

The volunteers who assembled the Washed Ashore exhibit did a great job in creating something beautiful and powerful out of something ugly and pretty awful, and in fostering awareness through art. It's definitely worth a look.

The Washed Ashore exhibit will be at the Virginia Aquarium through September 28 and is free with admission.