Museum closure

MoDiP, as with the rest of the AUB campus will close from 2pm on Friday 21st December for the Christmas break.  We will be open again at 8.30am Wednesday 2nd January 2019.

The MoDiP team would like to wish all of our users and followers a fun break and we will see you in the new year.

Best wishes

Susan, Pam, Katherine, Julia, and Louise

Plastic Space Jewellery

I am a Year 10 student at Bournemouth School for Girls and recently had to design and make a plastics product as part of my GCSE Graphics coursework. The design brief was to produce a product for a set audience based on the work of Tatty Devine, a company that produce original and fun statement jewellery.

I started to research their range online to explore what they did and what I liked. I was particularly interested by the multi-layered pieces, specifically what materials they were made from and how they were secured together. Next, I put together a mood board with images of things that I found inspiring and from there I began to develop my idea to focus on a space/planet theme. 

One of the Tatty Devine pieces that inspired me. Picture credit: https://www.tattydevine.com/products/astrologer-s-hand-necklace

My practice piece was a small planet design, made in acrylic, for a necklace. Although I miscalculated the sizing so that the chain hole was cut too small, I did learn how to use the software 2D design to create my overall piece and how to laser cut the four separate parts I needed. 

My practice piece.  Picture credit: Lauren Pell

It reminded me of a social media post I had seen of a UFO abducting a cow. I started to wonder if I could alter my design to change the planet into a space ship and, as I am not particularly fond of cows, beam a cat up instead. I also made the decision to make a brooch instead of a necklace as the calculations for the chain hole were too complicated to get right in the time I had available.

My final piece. Picture credit: Lauren Pell

The whole project has taken place over the past eight lessons and I really enjoyed taking control of my own design. I am still working on producing a vinyl logo to place on the presentation box I have made for the brooch and a powerpoint explaining the whole process I went through.

Next I would like to work on a larger item such as a clock, in different shades of red acrylic with decreasing layers building up to the clock face, inspired by this: 

Lobster. Picture credit: https://www.tattydevine.com/products/lobster-necklace-red

MoDiP has some Tatty Devine pieces and other jewellery in the collection that might inspire you with your own projects.

Lauren Pell. (Guest blogger)

The Plastic Prometheus Lives on…at MoDiP

Back on All Hallows Eve, Frankenstein’s Monster was recreated, object by object, by its new masters - the Masters of MoDiP! Eighteen selected pieces from the collection were arranged as a body laid out in the museum, ready to be taken apart both literally and metaphorically.

The body was draped with a white cloth, to show due respect to the newly assembled synthetic soul, as well as for dramatic effect later on in the ‘big reveal’. 

Level 4 and 5 Creative Writing students took up the challenge of responding to this monster collection of MoDiP objects, in two workshops appropriately called ‘MoDiP Meets Frankenstein’ as part of Frankenstein Unbound, a conference to celebrate 200 years since Mary Shelley’s work ‘Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus’ was published.

After being read an excerpt from Shelley’s story, and told some background information about the author and her book, the body was revealed to each class followed by random dissections, as students honed in to learn more. 

The students then settled down to put their initial responses to the MoDiP objects to paper. Some lingered on or returned to the sleeping monster for further examination of what lay before them. 

Using MoDiP objects as stimuli for the imagination - in this case for Creative Writing – is an effective technique and one that lends itself to the Collection particularly well. 

Here are two written pieces penned by students in response to the Frankenstein workshop, together with a short account by another, of how the session – and MoDiP – changed how she viewed plastics: 




Reduced, Reused

Lynsey Austin

There are no lightning bolts
Breaking at the stitching
Of the sky:
Its seams still sealed overhead.
There is no maniacal laughter
Itching at my senses –
No unwanted earworm –
While you leave me for dead.

No sirens cry out –
Though I try myself –
Among the inky veins and
Tendrils of the night.
And no help comes
As the day draws first breath
And sets the horizon on fire:
The world alight.

The battle did not happen
The way they always say –
Their predictions awry –
Those prophets of old.
There was no good versus evil,
No right or wrong.
Just patience growing frail,
And hearts turning cold.

Your aid and your friendship,
Perhaps a hand
That would help me stand,
Is all that I would ask.
But instead you turn your back
On me
On us
And pull off your mask.

 

They put something inside me
Ellie Grant

They put something inside me. I can feel it every time I move, every time I take a breath. I trace the lines of my ribcage with my fingertips and I swear I can feel it. There. It’s there. Something foreign in the fifth intercostal space. I’d miss it if I wasn’t looking. A small piece of resistance where there shouldn’t be. I lift up my shirt and glance quickly at the mirror. Maybe if I’m fast I’ll see it this time. But this time, just like every other time, there’s nothing there. Just the same unmarked olive skin.

The weird and wonderful from past and present
Tor Maries
The weird and wonderful from past and present can be found in MoDiP! Its display cases of plastic creations were a recent source of Inspiration for my creative writing work. Julia gave us a great insight into the variety and origin of plastics and their impact on the history of design and technology. We examined a ‘body’ formed from different plastic items from different decades. We looked at life-saving equipment, such as oxygen masks and syringes as well as everyday inanimate objects like an old go-kart seat. The Museum and the workshop inspired my work about the future of plastics. It was surprising to realise just how reliant we had become on non-recyclable plastics and how many everyday things, big and small had been designed this way. As plastic pollution in the ocean has become a prominent and mindful issue, I set out writing a short piece of fiction about how plastic pollution could potentially have disastrous consequences in the future if humanity failed to design with new forms of ecological plastics. It was an afternoon of great inspiration!

 

If you would like to use the Collection at MoDiP for an object based learning session or individual study, please contact me at: jpulman@aub.ac.uk

Julia Pulman (Museum Engagement Officer)

Don’t blame plastic, it didn’t want to be rubbish

Following on from my last post about the word ‘single-use’ becoming the word of the year, and the connotations that single-use plastics are bad plastics I wanted to explore the relationship people have with the material.[1]  A lot of people associate plastics with waste, pollution, and litter.  We see the material and we name it as the bad guy.  However, to take the personification of the material a step further, when it was born it didn’t see its future as floating in the seas for evermore or clogging up the drains. It wanted to be something useful, something that would last; it wanted to do something good and more often than not, it does do good – we just don’t notice it when it is doing its job well (Meikle, 1997, p. xiii).  When the material is being put to a job incorrectly or it is in the wrong place, it is us, human beings, who must take responsibility not the material.

US Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/catcher-beach.html [accessed 20 February 2018].

We all need to take responsibility for the products that we design, make, and use, as well as the way we dispose of them.  As designers and makers we need to think carefully about the materials we select.  What do we want them to do, and how long do we need the product to last. What can be done with the product when it comes to the end of its useful life? 

We need companies and governments to take more responsibility for the waste that is generated.  For example: Pret a Manger in Brighton have started to trial a scheme offering cash-back for the return of plastic bottles (BBC News, 2018), the supermarket Tesco are trialling a similar scheme (Tesco PLC, 2018).

We need designers and manufacturers to see the value of the materials they use and to make appropriate use of such valuable resources.

As consumers, we need to make informed choices about what we buy.  We assume that natural materials are the best choice environmentally but that is not necessarily the case.  Unbleached, undyed cotton uses large quantities of hazardous chemicals and high levels of water during its production (Burall, 1991, p. 39).  

We need to understand that biodegradable products aren’t always the best option either and can encourage littering.  These materials need special environmental conditions to break down; biodegradable doesn’t mean we are free to dump it in the street.

We need to change people’s behaviour when it comes to waste – too many people are littering and have the attitude that rubbish is ‘not my problem’, ‘someone else will clean it up’.

The UK government needs to take responsibility for the country’s recycling. Up until recently much of the UK’s recycling was sent to China.  Since 2012, the UK has exported 2.7 million tonnes of plastic waste to China and Hong Kong, which is two-thirds of the UK’s plastic waste exports.  But as of January this 2018, China has put a ban on plastics imports (Laville, 2017). The UK needs recycling plants in this country and we need the government to see the value of the material they have been sending out to China – we should keep that economic value in this country.

We cannot go on blaming the material, other people, other organisations for the environmental situation in which we find ourselves.  We need to think about why we use the materials and products that we do, as well as those that we choose to avoid asking ourselves if we are seeing the bigger picture.  We also need to take home our rubbish when we are out and about, recycle what we can, contact local and national authorities to demand improvements to recycling schemes, pick up the litter that we see, and take responsibility.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator) 

References

BBC News, 2018. Pret A Manger to trial plastic bottle cash-back scheme in Brighton [WWW Document]. URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-43214000 (accessed 3.5.18).

Burall, P., 1991. Green Design. The Design Council, London.

Laville, S., 2017. Chinese ban on plastic waste imports could see UK pollution rise | Environment | The Guardian [WWW Document]. Guard. Online. URL https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/07/chinese-ban-on-plastic-waste-imports-could-see-uk-pollution-rise (accessed 2.20.18).

Meikle, J.L., 1997. American Plastic: A Cultural History. Rutger University Press, New Brunswick & London.

Tesco PLC, 2018. Tesco trials money back on returned plastic bottles, and calls for a national approach to recycling [WWW Document]. URL https://www.tescoplc.com/news/news-releases/2018/tesco-trials-money-back-on-returned-plastic-bottles-and-calls-for-a-national-approach-to-recycling/

---

[1] For the purpose of this post I am using the singular form of plastics ‘plastic’.  However, it must be acknowledged that plastics are a group of many and varied materials.