„I think the earth is a great gift” – interview with Stephan Horch, a rubbish-collecting-kayaking-photographer

Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? We met Stephan Horch while hitchhiking throught Germany. Turned out, he was a photographer and a kayaker – plus a very concious environmental activist. Activist in terms of bringing together raising the awareness of waterpollution with the art of photography. At the time we met him, he was about to go on a huge kayak-tour to collect rubbish from the rivers and make photos of them. After the tour we asked him about how he came to the idea of this project, how it went and what the results were.

DailyNewsHungary: How did the idea of this project come to your mind? Did you get angry about the pollution of the Earth in general, or was there a more personal story?
Stephan: I started kayaking three and a half years ago. Gaining my first experience in the water I saw an old football swimming along the Rhine. I piked it up and we played with it after our tour. The football was already pretty damaged so I had to throw it away afterwards. On the next training it was a plastic bottle that I found and that we played with, and then a plastic bag. That was when I started collecting the rubbish from the river.
After I bought myself a kayak, I paddled a few times a week on the Mosel (a big river next to my front door). I realized that there is quite a lot of waste in the river and that the pollution varies from day to day, also some parts are more polluted than others. As a photographer you start thinking about using your skills to make the people aware of the problem. So I started taking pictures of the rubbish in the nature, like a documentary. But it didn’t reach the aim – getting the peoples’ attention for the problem. But as I’m a photographer and installation artist I had more in mind – art. It quickly became clear that if I want to arouse the interest of people, I had to bring it into another context. So I made art out of it to illuminate the subject in another light, and it worked!

DailyNewsHungary: What were the next steps after you decided to do this project?
Stephan: Normally I paddle two times a week and every time I collect half a bag of rubbish – or even more. There are also some hotspots I’m going to sometimes in purpose to clean them completely. Most of the time I end up with 2-3 bags of waste. It’s unbelievable when you see the amount of the rubbish. Once I started to arrange it and took a picture.

DailyNewsHungary: What did the people you talked about this to tell you – did they support you? Was there anyone, who tried to convience you not to make the CleanWaterProject?
Stephan: At the beginning only my friends were interested, but all of a sudden it changed: more and more people started to be interested in my plan, and I had a lot of conversations about the problem. Turns out, the biggest problem is that we still don’t pay enough attention for the pollution of the waters.