A flushed wet wipe in a Barcelona bathroom creates a problem that no single discipline can solve.
Marine biology can explain what the wipe does to the sea.
Communications can tell people not to flush it.
Participatory art can turn an invisible behaviour into a collective experience.
Each does part of the job. None does the whole job alone.
Wipes Out is built on this honest observation. We treat ocean literacy, participatory art and behaviour change communication as three disciplines that need each other, not three options to choose between.
Why no single discipline is enough
The ideal vision of participatory art imagines that citizens will naturally want to engage around an environmental problem. But in reality, people rarely engage with a problem they do not yet know exists. Using information to mobilise people first is what makes participatory art possible.
How the three weave together
In Wipes Out, ocean literacy is the entry point. Through workshops with high-school students, families, fishers and women's collectives, we trace the full pathway: bathroom to sewer to wastewater treatment plant to river to sea.
Science is the door. Participatory art is the engine.
Once participants understand the journey, they are more able to co-create the artistic translation of it. High-school students produce the behaviour-change messages themselves. Fishers contribute testimonies that anchor the narrative in lived experience. Community groups and citizens co-build the public performance staged in July 2026.
The audience becomes part of the journey of the wet wipe
Behaviour change is the common thread through the 3 disciplines. Every activity is designed to leave the participant with a clear action: “bin it, don't flush it”. Every output, from the workshops to the performance to the social content, carries this single transferable habit shift.
Beyond Wipes Out
This approach combines scientific rigour with emotional experience and community co-creation. We believe this combination is what makes real and lasting behaviour change possible.
If this method works in Barcelona and Badalona, it can work in many other places where a hidden environmental behaviour needs to become visible. This is why we are building it as a replicable open-source toolkit, la maleta, for any coastal community that wants to follow the same path.
For further information, contact Chantal Ménard, Project Coordinator
cmenardcomms@gmail.com
Wipes Out is a collaboration between Chantal Ménard (Communications strategist, Co-founder of Mediterracom), Roberta Genova (Co-founder of La Città Infinita and Mediterracom), Anna Bozzano (marine biologist and founder of El Peix al Plat) and Ramon Guimaraes (artist specialising in environmental performance).
