We’ve been put in touch with Dell Cullum a photographer, conservationist, activist and animal rescuer whose family has lived for several generations in Amagansett, the next town west of Montauk. Early every morning Dell goes to his local beach and picks up litter for an hour before work. He has been doing this for years and is committed to raising awareness about the fragile and often toxic relationship between nature, discarded man-made detritus and activating a change in behaviour at a personal and community level. He instigated the annual Shoreline Sweep from Montauk to East Hampton, as well as monthly beach clean ups.
We meet him before 7am on a beautiful morning at the main car park to Amagansett beach. At this time of the day, the beach is deserted apart from a few dog walkers and Dell. It is breath-taking. It is easy to see how the daily action in this location can function on multiple levels, both as practical action and as mediation with nature.
At first glance, to our novice eyes, the sands look pretty clean, but Dell’s eyes are hawk-like, spotting plastic, nylon, paper and cardboard across the shore. We walk, litter pick and talk about how action and persistence can affect change. His mantra is that the public and community can and must help the cause by becoming part of the solution. His approach and actions remind me of Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ Touch Sanitation project and ongoing residency at the New York Sanitation Department. Her commitment over a period of time created a slow, but significant refocusing on attitudes to waste, the community of workers associated with it and the sometimes uncomfortable relationship the public have with it.
We talk about how we hope that public awareness is changing and compare proposed government legislation on both sides of the Atlantic, in New York State, UK and Europe to ban plastic straws and phase out single-use plastic. Dell is frustrated where and how trash cans are sited on the beach. More intelligent design and placing can reduce carefully disposed trash returning to the ground it was supposed to save, by animals, wind, and overuse.
We also discuss the possibility of developing a twinned activity on our respective Suffolk coasts later next year. I revisit some of the cyanotypes Felicity and I made on Orford Ness out of collected maritime rubbish which may be a possible direction for communicating and documenting the detritus in a different way.
