What is the point of art?  Is it to make you question an idea?  Appreciate beauty and design?  Challenge yourself?

This is exactly what Liina Klauss does with her Vendor’s booth of Lost’n’Found treasures in Stanley for the Ocean Art Walk 2014.

Drawn in by the rainbow colours of meticulously organized ‘trash’ that has washed up on beaches around Lantau Island, Hong Kong.  When you realize that all the mostly plastic items on display were once used, loved, had purpose and had value before they found their way to the sea.  It is a conflicting mix of frustration, revulsion and admittedly quiet pleasure in seeing these objects retrieved and repurposed, connecting with people in a way they never could as isolated trash on the beach.

The ‘bathroom’ on the shelf with toothbrushes and a cosmetics container literally brings this home.  This stuff is mine.  I use this stuff everyday.  What happens to all the stuff I have used?  Where did it end up?  Landfill? Recycled? Accidentally ‘lost’ out of the system I intended it to go?  Is one of my toothbrushes floating out at sea?

One of the many fantastic things Liina does, is getting her intended message across simply.  Connecting people with what we need to protect and showing natural beauty interspersed with what should not be found on our beaches.

Showing intricate corals, shells, seed pods and driftwood as well as the crusted homes of marine life on lost objects makes the connection with what we need to protect, wonder over and take responsibility for.

The responses from people to Liina’s installation are written on the wall.

What is your response?

What will you do?

Protect.  Reduce.  Wonder.  Refuse.  Discover.  Repurpose.