In a suburban garage on the Gold Coast, two longtime friends turned an idea about soy‑sauce packets into a towering fish sculpture that now dominates the foreshore at one of Australia’s biggest outdoor art events.

The piece, a stylised mullet, is woven from cat’s‑claw creeper, an invasive vine notorious for smothering native trees, and stuffed with miles of discarded fishing line and other single‑use plastics. The artists harvested the vines from a protected area in Nerang National Park, turning a pest into raw material for art.

Ged McCormick and Rusty Linnane spent countless hours cutting, treating and weaving the vine into a 30‑centimetre‑wide section after section, eventually creating a fish that stretches several metres. The work functions as both a visual spectacle and a tactile reminder of the waste that clutters beaches.

Placed at the SWELL Sculpture Festival on the Currumbin foreshore, the mullet invites visitors to stroll barefoot among the installations, confronting the entanglement of nature and consumer culture. The artists hope the striking form will prompt onlookers, especially younger ones, to reconsider single‑use plastics and see creative possibilities in environmental stewardship.

While the creators describe themselves as amateurs having fun, the sculpture’s scale and message demonstrate how community‑driven art can turn an “obnoxious” weed into a catalyst for conversation about sustainability.

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