Public Story

The Sunshiners; Code Red in Green China

Copyright Daniel Hinks 2024

Updated Dec 2021

Location Rizhao

Topics Abstract, Activism, Climate Change, Conservation, Culture stories, Documentary, Editorial, Environment, Photography, Photojournalism

Summary

Fish for Future?

By 2050 there will be more plastic in the sea than fish!

China’s domestic waters have suffered decades of water pollution, vast urbanisation, climate change and rising sea levels. Coastlines have been reshaped, fisheries emptied out — the question remains, how much longer can this go on and can designated fishing ports and the marine climate change program fix China’s overfishing and plastic pollution problem?

The sun shiners code red in green china is a body that explores the complexities of plastic pollution, overfishing and rising sea levels to the coastal regions of china.

China’s coastline stretches 14,500km from the Bohai Sea down to the Gulf of Tonkin. Over the next two years I will be travelling the length of the coastline with a core focus on the Shandong peninsular one of the hardest hit areas of climate change overfishing and ocean pollution. I will continue to document the ever changing coastline as China tackles new challenges and solutions to its ocean pollution, overfishing, rising sea levels, effects of Covid-19 on fisheries and climate change. Ocean pollution is a worldwide problem and one we must confront sooner rather than later, once it enters the ocean it makes its way into the food chain and back into our bodies. This project is extraordinarily rich visually and it conveys a powerful message for social and environmental change. — we should all do more, both on the individual and societal level, and the time is not tomorrow, it’s today. As a concerned photographer, this project is activistic in its approach. Telling a story of a contemporary issue that needs a thought provoking and humanistic approach surrounding the issues and solutions to plastic and ocean pollutions, overfishing and rising sea levels. This is represented in the work by the colour palette consistently through the series giving off a sense of hope and complexity regarding the issue intending to keep the viewer connected rather than turning away from this difficult topic. The imagery is created from printing photographs on acetate sheets and Other images have been shot on 35mm film and used sea water in the developing stage in order to depredate the film. The layering of the images with found plastic pollution allows me to to produce an aesthetic of ocean plastic pollution and rising sea levels. Emphasising the intricacy of the problem. During this project I will be working in close collaboration with NGO’S such as China ocean dialogue, Blue China and Ocean outcomes. Allowing me unprecedented access, access to data and accurate reporting on one of the most crucial and complex issues of our time. Therefore, funding from the Alexia student fund would enable me to travel and spend extended periods of time working with local communities from the Shandong peninsular to the rest of the coastline. I will expose this project by means of social media, newspaper and magazine articles as well as book format to raise greater awareness to these issues and the development of sustainable seas. I will be developing this work into a substantial piece of activism that will come alive and have a life of its own outside of the traditional publishing streams.

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