News Jan 21 | Trash heads
Art from rubbish
The Issue of Waste Has Come to a Head in Bisley: January 26th - February 1st
Six households in the village of Bisley, Gloucestershire, will donate their rubbish to local artist Gavin McClafferty and work with him to create portraits or "heads" of a family member, as part of the County Council's Zero Waste Challenge Week.
Gavin McClafferty has been awarded a month-long residency in Bisley, the County Council's flagship Zero Waste Challenge Week Village, and winner of Gloucestershire's Village of Year Award Environment Section in 2008. The Issue of Waste Has Come to a Head in Bisley project has won sought-after Arts Council Lottery funding and is supported by Stroud District Council. McClafferty says:
"We can profile people through their rubbish. I'd like to extend this idea of profiling into portraiture. It could be read as a pseudo-forensic exercise to define how a person might be represented by what they have discarded. Something of the original person is left as a trace on what is unwanted.
"Archaeologists use this technique to understand the life of former settlements. The Police use the technique to gain insights into to a subject and criminals to obtain personal information. I want to use it to focus attention on the material itself, our relationship with it and how we mange it as a resource.
"By focusing on this detritus it’s interesting how an apparently benign object like an empty cooking oil bottle becomes politicized. Issues of economics, land-use, mineral resources and pollution all come into focus"
An exhibition of the portraits will be shown during Zero Waste Challenge Week, 26th January to 1st February at Bisley Parish Council's Pavilion Club House, Van Der Breen Street, Bisley with a celebratory event at the end of the residency on Saturday 31st January from 4 to 7pm.
The aim of Zero Waste Challenge Week (January 26th - February 1st) is to reduce the amount of rubbish that is sent to landfill, which is not only damaging to the environment but also increasingly expensive. Residents are being encouraged to sign up to the challenge and cut the amount of waste they produce in the first place, as well as recycle and compost as much as possible.
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