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SCULPTURE WORKSHOP - INITIAL IDEAS&CLAY MOULDS

My idea for the workshop is to create a series of moulds which transcribe the concerns of pollution, mainly plastic waste, within the environment ultimately leading to increasing rises in climate change, linking it directly with my research interests and practise. The moulds are based on direct observation done in and around the local area and are de-categorised representations of bottles and waste plastic which is heavily visible on the streets and in the eco-systems which surround. Particularly in the river Wensum which runs through Norwich. 
The concept of these moulds is based around mass consumerism and how the production of plastic has increased massively over the last century due to large corporations such as Coca-Cola - they produce an estimated 100 billion throwaway plastic bottles every year – and billions of these will end up on beaches, in landfill and in the sea. Greenpeace are calling on the soft drinks giant to reduce their plastic footprint and stop Coca-Cola bottles choking our oceans.

 There are sanctions in place through local councils which encourage recycling but as a whole it is not enough. Each year within the UK 275,000 tonnes of plastic is used, which equates to around 15 million plastic bottles a day. But only 45% of this is correctly recycled, largely due to consumer uncertainty of which items can be recycled but also an ignorance in the importance of recycling and the effects that plastic being disposed of in landfills and within the environment is having globally. We are collectively committing environmental injustice, resulting in an unsustainable act which needs to be addressed. 

Taking this idea further away from the moulds made in the workshop I have collected bottles found within the area around the university and filled the negative space inside the bottles with plaster. The casts that are formed within these crushed, crinkled and discarded bottles resist categorisation. By taking these objects out of their environment and creating another object from them it can be experienced out of context. These casts will be placed back into an environment as a visual image of the devastation pollution is causing, people see plastic waste as mundane and part of the everyday but when the materiality of the object is changed it becomes more significant.  

 


With the objects having no direct categorisation it has a subtle but valuable representation of individuals not holding themselves accountable for the irreparable damage that their ignorance is inflicting of the planet.

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