From Ghost Gear to Community Art

Artist Pamela Moulton shares her process for turning ghost gear—abandoned fishing equipment that can be deadly to wildlife—into joyful community projects

By Jennifer Wehunt // Art by Pamela Moulton
Conservation
Jun 27, 2024

THE MAINE ARTIST PAMELA MOULTON didn’t invent the term “ghost gear”—meaning any fishing detritus that ends up in the marine environment—but she’s intimately familiar with it. “I’ve probably gathered 25 tons,” she says. That’s 50,000 pounds of dirty, smelly, matted, salt- and carcass-encrusted ropes and nets pulled from the ocean and transformed into sculptural installations. “The work is so labor-intensive, I need help,” Moulton says, estimating that 2022’s “Beneath the Forest, Beneath the Sea” (above) drew on a total of 5,600 volunteer collaborators from elementary schools, retirement homes and recovery centers to cut the netting into chunks, run it through repeated car washes and lay it in the sun to bake before chopping it into smaller pieces, untwizzling the lengths, dipping them in pink paint, letting them dry and then pulling them apart “to make them frilly and ready to tie onto a sculpture.” Those hands bring new life to what was once a grave danger to wildlife. “It’s strange, working with the material,” Moulton says. “You feel the harm that was done, but we’re honoring all these creatures that were caught in this net and killed.” Learn more about ghost gear recycling and see more of Moulton’s work.