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The Drifters Project Harnesses Community to Clean the Oceans and Visualize Global Plastic Pollution
Art#community
#Drifters Project
#installation
#oceans
#plastic
#pollution
#sculptureNovember 6, 2023
Grace Ebert More
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Social Issues and the Climate Crisis Intertwine in Subversive Crocheted Works by Jo Hamilton
Art
Craft#crochet
#landscapes
#plastic
#portraits
#yarnNovember 15, 2021
Grace Ebert“I Crochet Portland” (2006-2009), mixed crocheted yarn, 63 x 114 inches. All images © Jo Hamilton, shared with permission
From a mix of wool fibers and yarn made from plastic waste, Scottish artist Jo Hamilton crochets large-scale portraits and architectural landscapes delineated with dangling threads. Her knotted pieces push the boundaries of art and craft traditions, bringing the two together in subversive portrayals of powerful women and metropolises marred by production. Unraveling at the edges, the textured works reflect on interlocking issues like unchecked capitalism, social disparities, and the increasingly urgent climate crisis.
All of the materials Hamilton uses are recycled, whether sourced from estate sales and resalers or created in studio. A few years ago, she started turning grocery bags, videotapes, and other household items into skeins of yarn-like threads—the artist shares some of this process on Instagram—as a way to reduce her impact on the environment, explaining:
We tend to glorify nature as an eternal and everlasting idea, separate from ourselves and our real-life actions. We’ve held on tightly to these ideas during the last few decades in the throes of late capitalism and globalization, and if we don’t change our thinking, policies and behavior immediately it will be too late. So I channeled my anxieties about over-production, pollution, and climate change into my work, using plastic in some of the works in contrast with the yarn.
If you’re in Portland, stop by Russo Lee Gallery to see Hamilton’s most recent works as part of her solo show Transitory Trespass, which closes on November 27.“Cherry Steel Above and Below” (2017), mixed crocheted yarn, 68 x 122 inches
“Shinig Mountain Eclipse.” Photo by John Clark
Left: “Masked Metamorhic.” Right: “Masked Marbled.” Photos by John Clark
“Death Star PDX” (2018), mixed crocheted yarn, 45 x 52 inches. Photo by John Clark
“Isaac Montalvo” (2008), mixed yarn, 23 x 22 inches
“Head & Neck Dietician” (2016), mixed crocheted yarn, 29 x 27 inches
“Groucho Gia” (2013), mixed crocheted yarn, 51 x 36 inches
Hamilton with a 2019 outdoor crocheted mural project on SE Foster Road in Portland. Photo by Kevin McConnell
Hamilton with a 2019 outdoor crocheted mural project on SE Foster Road in Portland. Photo by Kevin McConnell#crochet
#landscapes
#plastic
#portraits
#yarnDo stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member and support independent arts publishing. Join a community of like-minded readers who are passionate about contemporary art, help support our interview series, gain access to partner discounts, and much more. Join now!
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‘Fake Food, Real Garbage’: A Satirical Store is Fully Stocked with Groceries Made Entirely of Plastic
Art
Food#installation
#plastic
#satire
#storesJuly 7, 2021
Grace EbertPhoto by Tony Lewis. All images courtesy of UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance, shared with permission
Wander into a new pop-up grocery store in Downtown Los Angeles, and you’ll find all of the typical options with an unusual twist: freezers stocked with tubs of “Bag & Jerry’s,” a robust produce section with bananas and tomatoes printed with advertisements, and mysteriously gray “polluted sausage” stuck to styrofoam trays.
Dubbed “The Plastic Bag Store,” the witty and satirical installation is the project of Robin Frohardt, who repurposed scores of bottle caps, packaging, and other single-use materials into a full-fledged grocery. Each of the non-edible items—many of which have undergone clever rebrands, meaning you’ll find family-sized boxes of Yucky Shards cereal, cases of Bagorade bottles, and clamshells of Earthbag Farms non-organic spring mix in the aisles—is made entirely with discarded waste that the Brooklyn-based artist, puppet-maker, and designer collected from garbage bins and trash sites.Photo by Bailey Holiver
Paired with a performative component that envisions how future generations will interpret the inordinate amount of waste produced in today’s world, the installation literally displays the longevity of the items many of us use on a daily basis. According to recent estimations, the amount of plastic in the ocean is predicted to exceed the volume of fish by 2050, an ongoing crisis Frohardt wants to make more apparent. “’The Plastic Bag Store’ is a visually rich and humorous experience that hopefully encourages a different way of thinking about the foreverness of plastic, the permanence of the disposable and that there is no ‘away’ when we throw something out,” she says.
The grocery, which debuted in Times Square last fall with the tagline “Fake Food, Real Garbage,” is open at UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance through July 11. You can find more of Frohardt’s projects, many of which critique mass consumerism and capitalism through a humorous lens, on her site and Instagram. (via Hyperallergic)Photo by Bailey Holiver
Photo by Bailey Holiver
Photo by Maria Baranova
Photo by Tony Lewis
Photos by Maria Baranova
Photo by Maria Baranova
Photo courtesy of Rundle Mall#installation
#plastic
#satire
#storesDo stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member and support independent arts publishing. Join a community of like-minded readers who are passionate about contemporary art, help support our interview series, gain access to partner discounts, and much more. Join now!
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Two Imposing Cubes Covered in Yellow Plastic by Artist Serge Attukwei Clottey Respond to Global Water Insecurity
Art#climate change
#colonialism
#installation
#plastic
#waterMarch 16, 2021
Grace Ebert“The Wishing Well” (2021) in Coachella Valley. All images © Serge Attukwei Clottey, courtesy of Desert X, by Lance Gerber, shared with permission
A mottled patchwork of plastic cloaks two cubes that tower over the desert landscape of Coachella Valley. Titled “The Wishing Well,” the bright pair are the work of Ghanaian artist Serge Attukwei Clottey, who created the nine-foot pieces from scraps of Kufuor gallons, or jerrycans, in response to shared struggles with water insecurity that ripple across the world. Resembling a yellow brick road, a paved walkway connects the two woven structures that stand in contrast to the surrounding environment, which faces continual struggles with access to the natural resource.
Clottey’s use of the material is tied to a larger critique of colonialism’s enduring legacy and the ways it continues to affect populations around the world, particularly in relation to the climate crisis. Originally, European colonialists brought Kufuor gallons to Ghana to transport cooking oil. Today, the plastic vessels are ubiquitous and used to haul potable water. “As repurposed relics of the colonial project, they serve as a constant reminder of the legacies of empire and of global movements for environmental justice,” says a statement about the work that’s part of Desert X, a biennial bringing site-specific installations to Southern California.
“The Wishing Well” is one facet of Clottey’s larger Afrogallonism project, which he describes as “an artistic concept to explore the relationship between the prevalence of the yellow oil gallons in regards to consumption and necessity in the life of the modern African.” The Accra-based artist works in a variety of mediums spanning installation, sculpture, and performance that deal with the broader influence of colonialism in Africa. You can see a larger collection of his pieces on Artsy and Instagram.#climate change
#colonialism
#installation
#plastic
#waterDo stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member and support independent arts publishing. Join a community of like-minded readers who are passionate about contemporary art, help support our interview series, gain access to partner discounts, and much more. Join now!
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