A cassette tape lost at sea, found 25 years later
In the ultimate story of lost and found, a 12 year-old girl
lost her homemade mixtape in the early 1990s only to find it as
part of a Stockholm art exhibit over two decades later.
Stella Weddell lost the cassette tape - complete with
Disney songs, and tracks by Bob Marley and the Wailers, and
Shaggy - when she was visiting a beach resort in Spain.
Fast forward to 2019, Weddell was at an exhibit by photographer
Mandy Barker at Fotografiska Gallery in Stockholm, Sweden when
she saw a very familiar object on display: her mixtape. At
first, Weddell wasn't sure if the tape was actually hers until
she compared the track list to a CD she still had with the exact
same songs.
The tape managed to travel more than 1,200 miles from the Spanish resort town to an island off of Africa before washing up on a beach in 2017 when it was found
by Barker.
She then included the tape in her traveling exhibition, "Sea of
Artifacts," which documents plastic pollution across the world.
Barker contacted Richard Thompson, head of the international
marine litter research unit at the University of Plymouth, to
verify that the tape could have traveled so far.
"It is very difficult to say exactly how long the tape has been
in the sea, but the fact it has survived intact shows the
durability of plastic and the threat it can pose to the marine
environment," he said.
Here is the mixtape tracklist:
DJ BoBo - Somebody Dance With Me - 1993
Charles and Eddie - Would I Lie To You? - 1992
Walt Disney Records - The Jungle Book Groove - 1967
Inner Circle - Rock With You - 1992
SNAP! - Do You See The Light - 1993
Dr Alban - One Love - 1992
Captain Hollywood Project - More And More - 1993
Shaggy - Oh Carolina - 1993
Urban Cookie Collective - I've Got The Key - 1994
Bitty McClean - It Keeps Rainin' (Tears From My Eyes) - 1993
Loft - Summer Summer - 1994
Undercover - Never Let Her Slip Away - 1992
Dance 2 Trance - I Believe In The Power Of American Natives -
1992
Bob Marley - Iron Lion Zion - 1984
Sweet Harmony - The Beloved - 1992
KC and The Sunshine Band - Give It Up - 1982
Pet Shop Boys - Go West - 1993
Soul Asylum - Runaway Train - 1992
UB40 - (I Can't Help) Falling In Love With You - 1993
Culture Beat - Mr. Vain - 1993
