ACTIVISM
“We are the first generation to know we are destroying our planet and the last one that
can do anything about it”.
can do anything about it”.
Climate change is very real - an intellectual understanding of the scientific facts is simply not enough - and I firmly believe that if we want to move forward and effect meaningful change, we need to engage the other side of our brains.
My current work as an artist and photographer is primarily concerned with highlighting and addressing our single-use consumer culture. However I am also aware that we as a society are overwhelmed by media stories, with their sad images of death and choked oceans and it’s easy to feel as if individual and local actions won’t matter.
In response to this a few years ago I started making headdresses from my plastic refuse. I chose the headdress form for its aesthetic value and because of the link;
If it’s on my head it’s my responsibility!
I then created a series of photographic portraits of myself and my children wearing these plastic headdresses.
My current work as an artist and photographer is primarily concerned with highlighting and addressing our single-use consumer culture. However I am also aware that we as a society are overwhelmed by media stories, with their sad images of death and choked oceans and it’s easy to feel as if individual and local actions won’t matter.
In response to this a few years ago I started making headdresses from my plastic refuse. I chose the headdress form for its aesthetic value and because of the link;
If it’s on my head it’s my responsibility!
I then created a series of photographic portraits of myself and my children wearing these plastic headdresses.
After exhibiting them at The Electric Picnic music festival two years running, I was invited by a number of sustainable living festivals to exhibit these photographs. Alongside the exhibition of photos I set up a portable photo-booth called - wait for it …..TITS UP (an acronym for This Is The Single Use Plastic - photo booth) as my personal reaction to being bombarded with images of rivers and oceans choking with plastic as the world’s waste crisis deepens - is that it has indeed all gone TITS UP.
I invited the public to have their portraits taken wearing these headdresses. The conversations started and www.peopleagainstplastic.ie (a website to create awareness that I co-founded) was born. So I am now using art as a means to engage people from all walks of society, to start meaningful conversations about what we as individuals can do; as I believe that it’s a problem that can truly be solved on an individual level and also by lobbying governments and manufacturers for change.
I invited the public to have their portraits taken wearing these headdresses. The conversations started and www.peopleagainstplastic.ie (a website to create awareness that I co-founded) was born. So I am now using art as a means to engage people from all walks of society, to start meaningful conversations about what we as individuals can do; as I believe that it’s a problem that can truly be solved on an individual level and also by lobbying governments and manufacturers for change.
For more information please download my
environmental & arts education package here
environmental & arts education package here
I am a registered teacher and have 25 years experience working as a part-time art teacher in schools and in the community. Through a creative engagement process I have worked/am working with primary and secondary schools, early school leaver & youth centres and nationwide have begun really meaningful conversations about how to edge our way out of the current plastic crisis.
What I offer is up to date interactive displays, film clips about the current plastic crisis whilst also offering solutions. But best of all an opportunity to do your own ‘making’ with your own single use plastic materials. This hands on approach gives participants a better understanding of what materials they would want to avoid and why.
In these creative sessions, listening to participants own stories about how they use plastic at home, in school and whilst travelling can also be enabling. Having control over their story lets them spot where changes can be made without having someone preach to them. So by beginning with the plastic material itself, then moving to a participant's own stories, my aim is to help people create, innovate and responsibly reuse, reduce or replace plastics in their everyday lives.
What I offer is up to date interactive displays, film clips about the current plastic crisis whilst also offering solutions. But best of all an opportunity to do your own ‘making’ with your own single use plastic materials. This hands on approach gives participants a better understanding of what materials they would want to avoid and why.
In these creative sessions, listening to participants own stories about how they use plastic at home, in school and whilst travelling can also be enabling. Having control over their story lets them spot where changes can be made without having someone preach to them. So by beginning with the plastic material itself, then moving to a participant's own stories, my aim is to help people create, innovate and responsibly reuse, reduce or replace plastics in their everyday lives.
