Video of Flow I's installation by Aaron Ashley (click below)

 http://www.vimeo.com/30223596

 Flow II is now finally up as part of Strand Ephemera VI and much bigger.
It is now 12 x 7 metres wide incorporating approximately 30,000 up-cycled plastic bottle tops.

FLOW I installation

FLOW I FINISHED

Photo by Through The Looking Glass

Photo by Through The Looking Glass

Photo by Through The Looking Glass

Workshops

Students from the TAFE Barrier Reef Pimlico assisting with Flow during the workshops held 4.5.11

Other wrappers

The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris 1985

Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Photo: Wolfgang Volz
1985 Christo
www.christojeanneclaude.net

Spanish Pavilion, Shanghai Expo 2010

The pavilion is "dressed" in more than 8,000 wicker panels in brown, beige, and black.

Wicker weaving is a tradition in both Spain and China and the pavilion is like a cultural bridge connecting the two nations.

www.dezeen.com

Selfridges Birmingham by architect Jan Kaplicky

The skin is made up of thousands of aluminium discs

www.contemporist.com

The Water Cube, Beijing, China

The Beijing National Aquatics Centre, 2008

The Water Cube was specially designed and built by a consortium made up of PTW Architects (an Australian architecture firm).

 www.archicentral.com

Tower skin

International architectural firm LAVA
LAVA has developed a simple, cost effective, easily constructed skin that promises to transforms aged 1960's buildings in Sydney, into sustainable, iconic buildings.

www.designboom.com/weblog

Nga Urii o Hinetup arimaunga

Incorporating the Kakahu or Earth Blanket

Chris Booth in collaboration with Diggeress Te Kanawa Hamilton Gardens, Hamilton, New Zealand, 2005

Fist size rocks drilled & joined together

to make a large blanket shape.

www.chrisbooth.co.nz

Meeting of the Elders

El Anatsui

2005

Melbourne Theatre Company

Ian McDougall, Ashton Raggatt McDougall Architects

Photo taken in 2010

This building is located in Dashanzi Art District (original 798 Factory), the heart of a growing art and culture community in Beijing.

Photo taken in 2009

Why the title Flow?

This artwork is titled Flow as the word describes my aim with this artwork or public intervention. 

·        Flow is the continual rising tide of plastic coming into our waterways and beaches, especially just after the recent cyclone and floods.

·        Flow is the outpouring of sorrow that I feel when I see marine creatures that have eaten plastic such as lids and died a horrific death.

·        Flow is the surprising movement this fabric like artwork becomes as it wraps around other surfaces.

·        Flow is the continuous journey I would like the material that forms this artwork to travel along from a number temporary public art sites within my local region outwards.

In contemporary art “an ‘intervention’ can also refer to art which enters a situation outside the art world in an attempt to change the existing conditions there. For example, intervention art may attempt to change economic or political situations, or may attempt to make people aware of a condition that they previously had no knowledge of. Since these goals mean that intervention art necessarily addresses and engages with the public, some artists call their work "public interventions". (Wikipedia)

Production

Each one of the thousands of lids has to be drilled with 4 holes into the sides ready for connecting with cable ties. 

When I drill these holes the accumulation of plastic shavings, known as swarf are thrown out so I wear a mask so I don't breath the minute particals into my lungs and I have made a small area to encased area to contain them.

I then sift the lids I have drilled to capture more of the swarf.

I aim to do something with this swarf but need to expirment more first.

As my back is now hurting from drilling thousands of lids, I will give that a rest, now I have begun sorting lids into colours those I have already drilled.  They remind me a bit of spices in hessian sacks.

This is my first helper Vicki Salisbury and her dog Remi who came to help me join the colours together in lines with cable ties.

The lids are then joined to the larger section where they flow in vertical lines.

Cylone Yasi called an abrubt halt to Flow for a couple of weeks as I had to abandon my open air deck (so the lids weren't strewn all over Townsvilleand try and stuff the project into my little studio space, which now resembles the aftermath of a cyclone!

 

How Flow began?

In 2008 I had a solo exhibition at Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts in Townsville titled Chain Reaction.  My aim was to experiment by combining upcycled materials and effects like domino effect, virtuous cycle and fractals.  Whilst I was creating one of the artworks titled Ripple Effect from thousands of recycled plastic lids for the exhibition, I knew and wanted to really extend the use of this medium further. 

 

By minimising and placing the white lids all together with one single red lid, I felt was very statement depicted my aim, the power of one.

Photograph by Aaron Ashley

I then began collecting more plastic lids from soft drink and milk bottles from family, friends and local community then began to join them together, with the same message of one different coloured lid.  I was surprised and pleased to find the fabric like form the joined lids took. 

Are lids/caps recyclable?

From my understanding, no they are not.  A few years ago when speaking to Visy, I found out that plastic lids are not recycled.  One explanation I found for this recently is:

I am a recycle center supervisor in Traverse City. Lids cannot be recycled on water bottles (or any #1 plastic bottle) because the lids are not made out of #1 plastic. Therefore the lids cause contamination while the bottles are being recycled. unlike #2 plastic, #1 plastic, known as PET, can't have contaminants in it when it is recycled. (#2 can generally tolerate small amounts, such as lids, without destroying an entire batch) An entire batch of PET can be destroyed by just a little contamination.

The Plastic Pollution Coalition has a great site full of useful information at http://plasticpollutioncoalition.org/learn/basic-concepts/

Some of their tips are:

Refuse
Say NO to disposable plastics! 

Reduce
Reduce your plastic footprint: buy in bulk, choose products with the least packaging, look for products and packaging made from renewable resources, and avoid plastic packaging and containers. Choose products that have the least amount of disposable parts.

Reuse
Reuse preferably nontoxic (glass, stainless steel) containers and goods to make less waste.

Recycle
Recycle what you can’t refuse, reduce or reuse. Recycling is a last option because it uses energy, and there may not be a market for the refabricated materials.

Upcycled term?
I prefer to use the term 'upcycled' as Wikipedia explains: 'Upcycling is the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of b etter quality or a higher environmental value.'