PLASTIC WATERS

CREATIVE PROCESS

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Research and context –

Climate change is a major issue in today’s society and has been declared a national state of emergency in the UK on the 1st of May 2019. This issue is vast but for this project I will mainly be focusing on plastic waste and its devastating effect to the environment, wildlife and nature. In particular marine, stream and river wildlife, “100,000 marine creatures a year die from plastic entanglement and these are the ones found. Approximately 1 million sea birds also die from plastic.” (Ocean Crusaders, 2019), this point is further supported by surfers against sewage as they state “one marine mammal or sea bird dies every 30 seconds due to plastic pollution.” (Surfers Against Sewage, 2019). These statistics is at the forefront of my mind while making this project and how important change is. As humans our consumption of plastic is rising at an alarming rate with packaging becoming excessive to ‘protect’ food, clothing and items from damage. 

There is no guarantee that plastics will 100% be recycled even if they are put into a recycling bin and “79% of the plastic waste ever created has ended up in our environment” (WRAP, 2019).

It is important within this piece that the dancer has a form of animalistic qualities and would treat the plastic how a marine animal would treat it.  “Plastic doesn’t just look like food, it smells, feels and even sounds like food.” (Gabbatiss, 2017). As a species we are using plastic to protect our food but by doing this in turn the plastic used for protection is killing what we consider food, in conclusion it is becoming a cycle of death. 

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Sense of place within the screening – 

The screening of the event is important to the sense of place to this piece. The atmosphere of this beautiful place needs to change by changing the idea of flowing water into static plastic. I want to create this by creating a screen of plastic for the film to be projected on that will have more plastic attached to it to make it look like water/water fall streaming down.

A separate plastic which will be attached to the plastic sheets to give the desired waterfall effect. This plastic will be sourced from my place of work and will be recycled after at the recycling facilities at my work, but I hope to keep the plastic and reuse it to show the installation to multiple audiences.  

Changes to Installation – 

  Upon initial set up of the installation it was planned to project onto plastic sheeting, however during the pre tech run we discovered the film became distorted and couldn’t be clearly seen. The set was then changed to the plastic being used as the surround for the main screen, presented in a way that it cascaded from the ceiling to the floor in a waterfall effect with more plastic at the base like a pool of water made from plastic. A positive from the change of the installations design is that it showcased the waterfall effect which was also in the film, however this impeded the audiences view of the screen meaning they all had to be sat in a small space, also the plastic sheets would twist which would stop the full display not being even on both sides and difficult to manage.  Colouring of the film was also changed from black and white to coloured, this was done to show more depth of the piece showing where plastic becomes an almost green from prolonged exposure to water.

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Future of this project –

Moving on further from ‘Plastic Waters’ I would like to expand into further pollution subjects within different environments. Examples of this could be fracking in oceans and the effects on the wildlife   or how the wildlife is coping with the increased pollution. Another avenue this project could be furthered by looking into the other side of pollution such as the measures to reduce it. But I would like to first take plastic waters further to more locations and maybe some exhibitions to spread the message.

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Bibliography –

Ocean Crusaders (2019). Plastic Statistics. [online] Ocean Crusaders. Available at: http://oceancrusaders.org/plastic-crusades/plastic-statistics/ [Accessed 1 May 2019].

Surfers Against Sewage (2019). Surfers Against Sewage | Environmental charity tackling plastic pollution. [online] Surfers Against Sewage. Available at: https://www.sas.org.uk/ [Accessed 5 May 2019].

WRAP (2019). Plastic Planet | Recycle Now. [online] Recyclenow.com. Available at: https://www.recyclenow.com/plastic-planet?gclid=CjwKCAjw8e7mBRBsEiwAPVxxiN_VjkBNemcJqZhNXsboykfwlrSqNFwLhrw0rbu4-DHKGdnKnw4yrxoCCaQQAvD_BwE [Accessed 11 May 2019].

Gabbatiss, J. (2017). Why marine animals can't stop eating plastic. [online] Our Blue Planet. Available at: https://ourblueplanet.bbcearth.com/blog/?article=why-do-marine-animals-eat-plastic [Accessed 14 May 2019].

Jensenius, A. (2012). Disciplinarities: intra, cross, multi, inter, trans – Alexander Refsum Jensenius. [online] Arj.no. Available at: http://www.arj.no/2012/03/12/disciplinarities-2/ [Accessed 30 April 2019]

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