An art gallery based in Barking has created a life-sized sculpture of ‘Noah’s Ark’ from 3,000 bottles found in parks and rivers.

The sculpture was the brainchild of Laura Iosifescu, director of Laura I. Art Gallery CIC, who believed that building the sculpture would highlight the impact that plastic waste has on the environment and, specifically, climate change.

Laura, who is in her late 30s, said: “We wanted to clean up, obviously, the local area from plastic waste and other waste.

“With the historical heritage of Barking being one of the most important fishing ports in the UK, I thought building an ark from plastic bottles would be quite a historical thing to do.”

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The ark will be revealed in a ceremony on March 4. At the event, the ark and its creator are set to be joined by dignitaries from Barking and Dagenham Council.

The project started in early September last year and saw the gallery run two weekly activities to complete some of the tasks associated with the art.

There were Saturday morning plastic bottle litter-picking walks and Friday evening painting of the plastic bottles that were collected.

Laura added: “The project wouldn’t have happened without the collaboration, without the involvement of so many people, specifically young people, […] of all abilities and all ages.”

The gallery was able to build the ark after it secured funding from the Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy, which uses money collected from developers.

Laura launched the gallery in 2016 and on its website, it describes itself as an organisation that uses art as "a catalyst" to promote inclusion, social justice and diversity.

It bids to "nurture underrepresented artists" in their creative development, organising workshops and exhibitions.

The gallery was among those recognised at last year's Barking and Dagenham Chamber of Commerce Business Awards, where it won the award for innovation and diversification in the use of digital media.