Nesting In Plastic Junk -- One Photographer's Questionable Artistic Experiment

I'm the first one to admit that art is in my soul, and as such, I find it almost effortless to appreciate a wide range of artistic styles and creative interpretations.

What I do take issue with is when artists label certain efforts as "art" when from the rest of the world's perspective, those efforts might just as easily be labeled as irresponsible moments in time captured on film.

How's that for a build up? Somehow, I think that there might be a lot of eco-sympathizers in my corner when I tell you about the "work" of photographer Sema Bekirovic.

After observing a coot bird (pictured above in its natural habitat in photo #1) begin creating a nest for its family, Bekirovic decided to slowly but surely offer it alternative materials to augment the perfectly ample supply of sticks that it was plucking from the surrounding area.

For months, her offerings included such typical post-consumer junk such as little plastic toys, photographs, toothbrushes, pens, bags, straws and other water-resistant bits of garbage.

The coot gamely plucked the offerings and incorporated them into its nest.

Knowing what we already know about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and taking into consideration the huge loss of albatross life thanks to all of the random plastic junk that they are unintentionally consuming, I have to wonder what Bekirovic was thinking.

Was she actually thinking at all about the welfare of the birds or was she just focusing on what an unusual piece of "art" this would make for her next photography show?

I would love to hear if anyone else out there has a thought or two about these images and if you think they demonstrate eco-irresponsibility or if you think that they're just cool and there's no harm done.