While exhibiting at Customs House I decided to take a photograph of every piece of plastic I threw away at home. I recycle everything at home, and usually have only one small peddle bin of food waste that is collected every week. All my plastic goes to recycling but i thought it would be interesting to see what we throw away..........subconsciously. As with the one use plastic bottles that we collected for my installation. People used these on a daily basis but until they started to collect them for me, it actually highlighted how many bottles they actually used. As we threw them away daily they disappeared, when they were in a bin bag in the garage they accumulated really fast.
I have brought all my images together and in the 7 weeks I was exhibiting at Customs house I took 453 images of plastic that went into the bin after use. Some of these images had multiple items of them and on going through all the photos I found I had thrown away 642 pieces of plastic, on average that's nearly 14 pieces each day.
I am now questioning my life, the way I live, how i can improve on this disgusting revelation.
How much unnecessary packaging is there?
Making this film of flashing images will hopefully be very thought provoking, when you see that tally, you realise how our world is suffocating in a sea of plastic.
I have brought all my images together and in the 7 weeks I was exhibiting at Customs house I took 453 images of plastic that went into the bin after use. Some of these images had multiple items of them and on going through all the photos I found I had thrown away 642 pieces of plastic, on average that's nearly 14 pieces each day.
I am now questioning my life, the way I live, how i can improve on this disgusting revelation.
How much unnecessary packaging is there?
Making this film of flashing images will hopefully be very thought provoking, when you see that tally, you realise how our world is suffocating in a sea of plastic.
The Quilt of Sharon
Quilting and their patterns are an old craft technique, a form of recycling. Recycling old clothes and textiles into these quilts, creating memories and family heirlooms which are past down through generations, sometimes lasting hundreds of years. Carrier bags on the other hand are a blight on our land, a blanket that take hundreds of years to disintegrate, with detrimental effects to our planet and all who live on it. The Quilt of Sharon shows her shopping patterns, my friend has donated recycled bags to my cause for years, but her shopping patterns are very interesting with plenty of variety. Most people who donated bags, had a lot of the same bags, showing they only shopped in a few places. We are all consumed by media whether it is through magazines, television or the Internet and our shopping patterns and preferences derive from these prevailing pressures. Sharon made her own choices, hence the brightly coloured quilt. This quilt will grow and spread like the plastic that is on the land and in the sea. This quilt is quite beautiful at first glance and from a distance but then you realise it's it made up of hideous plastic. This quilt will eventually be over 4 meters square or larger.
Quilting and their patterns are an old craft technique, a form of recycling. Recycling old clothes and textiles into these quilts, creating memories and family heirlooms which are past down through generations, sometimes lasting hundreds of years. Carrier bags on the other hand are a blight on our land, a blanket that take hundreds of years to disintegrate, with detrimental effects to our planet and all who live on it. The Quilt of Sharon shows her shopping patterns, my friend has donated recycled bags to my cause for years, but her shopping patterns are very interesting with plenty of variety. Most people who donated bags, had a lot of the same bags, showing they only shopped in a few places. We are all consumed by media whether it is through magazines, television or the Internet and our shopping patterns and preferences derive from these prevailing pressures. Sharon made her own choices, hence the brightly coloured quilt. This quilt will grow and spread like the plastic that is on the land and in the sea. This quilt is quite beautiful at first glance and from a distance but then you realise it's it made up of hideous plastic. This quilt will eventually be over 4 meters square or larger.
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Catch of the Day
As I have lived by the sea all of my life, I have watched how the beaches have become cleaner and the sea is clearer. But under the waves there is a disaster happening for our sea-life. Plastic is suffocating our sea-life, getting caught up in it, eating it and dying from within because of it. Now it is going full circle as the fish digesting it and we are then eating it, we are reaping what we sew.
With my bottle installation, the bottles were stripped on their normal identity from the maker and given a new label of hideous facts about plastic. I have a huge collection of recycled plastic carrier bags which have been donated over the last 5 years. One of my next projects is to learn how to make a fishing net from our local fisherman, but instead of using cord will be using shredded carrier bags. The fishing net is the tool that the fisherman use, it is their livelihood, if we don't try and save our seas there may not be any fish to catch, this net will be a reminder of this fact. I plan to make a very large fishing net made out of stredded carrier bags. strung across a gallery almost taking over the space, not leaving much room to view, only small pockets, giving the viewer an element of suffocation, which is what plastic is doing to our environment.
With my bottle installation, the bottles were stripped on their normal identity from the maker and given a new label of hideous facts about plastic. I have a huge collection of recycled plastic carrier bags which have been donated over the last 5 years. One of my next projects is to learn how to make a fishing net from our local fisherman, but instead of using cord will be using shredded carrier bags. The fishing net is the tool that the fisherman use, it is their livelihood, if we don't try and save our seas there may not be any fish to catch, this net will be a reminder of this fact. I plan to make a very large fishing net made out of stredded carrier bags. strung across a gallery almost taking over the space, not leaving much room to view, only small pockets, giving the viewer an element of suffocation, which is what plastic is doing to our environment.