19th
THE ISSUE OF WASTE HAS COME TO A HEAD IN BISLEY
The Residents of Bisley prepare for Zero Waste Week.
6 Households donate rubbish to artist in residence.
Artist makes work.
TITLE: THE ISSUE OF WASTE HAS COME TO A HEAD IN BISLEY
WHEN: ZERO WASTE WEEK 26th Jan - 1st Feb
WHERE: THE CLUB HOUSE, Van Der Breen St, BISLEY, Glos, GL6
EVENT: END OF RESIDENCY/Z-WW 31ST 4-7PM
I am currently working with villagers on a month long residency in Bisley - THE flagship Zero Waste Village in Gloucestershire County, winner of Gloucestershire’s Village of the Year Award Environment Section in 2008.
This residency will generate new work using the rubbish of the local residents as the raw material. It becomes a simulation of an exchange or transformation emulating the natural cycle of zero waste.
The process will include photography, written documentation, collection and storage of rubbish generated over the month.
I have already collected some Christmas packaging and wrapping paper from residents and begun collecting iron at a local business (The Green Shop - thank you). I will use these materials for collaging and sculpting. The iron will be used later to create a permanent installation, possibly at the site of the residency. I am hopeful that over the course of the residency people will seek me out, at the Club House, stay for a cup of tea by the fire and discuss the whole zero waste idea.
The documentation generated through these processes will become a book-work, the sculptures will become iron as a final act of transformation.
These iron works will be returned to the villagers as an embodiment of this process. A manifestation of the mineral base from which our modern lives are derived.
We can profile people through their rubbish. I’d like to extend this idea of profiling into portraiture. It could be read as a pseudo-forensic exercise to define how a person might be represented by what they have discarded. Something of the original person is left as a trace on what is unwanted.
Archaeologists use this technique to understand the life of former settlements. The Police use the technique to gain insights into to a subject and criminals to obtain personal information. I want to use it to focus attention on the material itself, our relationship with it and how we mange it as a resource.
By focusing on this detritus it’s interesting how an apparently benign object like an empty cooking oil bottle becomes politicized. Issues of economics, land-use, mineral resources and pollution all come into focus
Closing Event 31st Jan 4-7pm
Exhibition ends 1st Feb
Zero Waste Week:
http://www.bisley-with-lypiatt.gov.uk/
http://myzerowaste.com
http://www.recycleforgloucestershire.com/zerowastechallenge/
