THE PLASTIC AGE
In collaboration with artist Andrew Whittle, Beach Guardian CIC and Trevisker Community Meadow CIC.
The Plastic Age is a site-specific sculpture. A twenty-first century Stone Circle created from plastics cleaned from local beaches around the Seven Bays of Padstow in Cornwall by Beach Guardian and their volunteers.
The sculptures were co-created in workshops with local school groups and beach cleaning volunteers at Trevisker Community Meadow where The Plastic Age circle sits among the wildflowers.
The Plastic Age stone circle creates a space in the community meadow to come together. A place to host more workshops which engage young people with the issues of marine plastics.
The Neolithic Stone Circles and sacred sites of Cornwall that inspired The Plastic Age project were places of congregation where societies came together to discuss, celebrate and connect with the land.
Each stone is modelled on a nanoplastic particle photographed through a microscopic camera. In the workshops we provided opputunity for the students to take a closer look and investigate plastics under the miscroscope.
The sculpture highlights the magnitude of this microscopic problem. Microplastics are present in almost all water systems in the world, our streams, rivers, lakes and oceans. Nanoplastics are potentially omnipresent in all life on earth.
By weaving with rope and making Plastic Relics we create space to engage with this challanging issue.
The Plastic Age is a site-specific sculpture. A twenty-first century Stone Circle created from plastics cleaned from local beaches around the Seven Bays of Padstow in Cornwall by Beach Guardian and their volunteers.
The sculptures were co-created in workshops with local school groups and beach cleaning volunteers at Trevisker Community Meadow where The Plastic Age circle sits among the wildflowers.
The Plastic Age stone circle creates a space in the community meadow to come together. A place to host more workshops which engage young people with the issues of marine plastics.
The Neolithic Stone Circles and sacred sites of Cornwall that inspired The Plastic Age project were places of congregation where societies came together to discuss, celebrate and connect with the land.
Each stone is modelled on a nanoplastic particle photographed through a microscopic camera. In the workshops we provided opputunity for the students to take a closer look and investigate plastics under the miscroscope.
The sculpture highlights the magnitude of this microscopic problem. Microplastics are present in almost all water systems in the world, our streams, rivers, lakes and oceans. Nanoplastics are potentially omnipresent in all life on earth.
By weaving with rope and making Plastic Relics we create space to engage with this challanging issue.
The Plastic Age travelled from Cornwall to Scotland on the 1st of November reaching the City of Glasgow on the 6th November for COP26 Global Day of Action 2021.
The artwork was exhibitied in Glasgow at The Hidden Gardens. A space of sanctuary, learning and participation.
Participants: Beach Guardian community volunteers, St. Meryn Primary School, St. Issey Primary School, Oak Tree Primary School
Funders: FEAST Cornwall, Arts Council England, Cornwall Council, Trevisker Community Meadow, National Lottery Community Fund
The artwork was exhibitied in Glasgow at The Hidden Gardens. A space of sanctuary, learning and participation.
Participants: Beach Guardian community volunteers, St. Meryn Primary School, St. Issey Primary School, Oak Tree Primary School
Funders: FEAST Cornwall, Arts Council England, Cornwall Council, Trevisker Community Meadow, National Lottery Community Fund
The Hidden Gardens, Glasgow, 2021
Microscopic images of plastics taken by St. Merry Primary School, St. Issey Primary School and Oak Tree Primary School, 2021
Plastic Crystal, 2021 made by Oak Tree Primary School.
Technical Drawings of the Plastic Stones
Plans for sculpture armatures showing corresponding microscopic images of nanoplastics.
Englarging the measurements of the nanoplastics X1000 to create the framework of the sculptures.