Georgia Grant

Every minute, one million plastic bottles, one million disposable cups and two million plastic bags are discarded into the ocean. I wanted to contextualise my response to this project around this horrific fact, and the greater theme of mass-production and environmental issues in our seas as consequence. In an attempt to divert these damaging processes, I wanted to celebrate plastic materiality to encourage reuse of disposable plastic. Plastic pollution is becoming an increasingly prominent issue as our society continues to shift from one revolved around production, to one around consumption, with people continually constructing a sense of personal identity around materiality and consumerism.

I created multiple simple yet elegant forms from old plastic packaging – slotting them within themselves, and with other plastic components. To inform the greater composition of my piece, I did some expressive sketches of the individual forms. Rather than have it considered a physical manifestation of a particular design or visual I wanted my model to be more abstract, to draw the attention back onto plastic as a material by itself. This was inspired by Anne Percoco’s ‘Indra’s Cloud’.

Another process I explored when developing my design, was printing onto my plastic forms with expanded polystyrene. This technique was inspired by the aesthetic quality of Laura Anne Marsden, who creates delicate textured forms from waste plastic bags. Another similar process I experimented with was scratching into the surface of my plastic forms, creating scuffs and marks, to highlight how damaged plastic can still be beautiful. Furthermore, scuffing and scratching also curates a sense of co-creation, consequently generating a sense of identity, and promoting attachment and so-forth repurpose.