Like Fierce Hazel, Longobardi is a passionate lover of nature and the outdoors and protecting and preserving it. She learned her love of the world’s ocean from her parents—one an ocean lifeguard and the other a state diving champ. From a young age, she became aware of the use and misuse of natural resources. As a girl she watched a neighborhood pond drained to make the high school she would later attend, making a lasting impression. Reducing excessive consumption and waste is a motivating factor in both Fierce Hazel’s sustainable bags and Longobardi’s eco-art. Fierce Hazel rescues material from the factory floor while Longobardi salvages plastic debris from the coastal and marine shores.
Plastics are the problem, the alarm, and the messenger in all of Longobardi’s conceptual art installations, paintings, photography, and sculptures. Plastics pervade our lives. Imagine your daily routine: hair combs, toothbrushes, gym equipment, sports balls, water bottles, satellite dishes, flip flops, Mardi Gras beads, and car parts. They are harmful to humans and animals from toxic pollutants. They destroy natural habitats and are often found in the stomachs of sea birds, turtles, and whales. It’s predicted that plastics are accumulating so fast that they will exceed the mass of all fish in the ocean by 2050. Plastics do not biodegrade, aren’t digestible, and can take hundreds of years to break down. Once found discarded from the ocean, they are evidence of crimes against nature, according to Longobardi. She aims to reduce the use of plastics and increase conservation.
