Harriet Thomas - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Harriet Thomas - BA (Hons) Fine Art, year 2

Untitled

My practice is mainly craft based using traditional techniques with contemporary materials.  Transforming the mundane into the extravagant or extraordinary is a subject matter my work embodies. Using found objects or materials I attempt to renovate them into something other than their customary function; by means of different forms of embellishment.  Using polythene bags I create my own yarn which I use to produce my sculptures; juxtaposing mass production with a handmade outcome.  Utilising the craft of crochet allows me to transform the viewpoint of polythene bags from a negative mass, seen to have a single use, into a positive by the means of a unique sculpture.  The sculpture was in response to two units Defining Practice 2 and Negotiated Practice 1. 

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Jill Clark - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Jill Clark - BA (Hons) Fine Art, part time year 4

Sentences

I am inspired to paint visual equivalents of conversations of all kinds in an abstract manner.  I use squeegees made from various sources to create the layers and structures necessary for the painting.  The ones here are from plastic milk bottles.  After using them they are often very interesting in their own right and so I keep them and consider them to be sentences taken from the conversation.   

Sentences

Sentences

Sentences

Sentences

Gillian Goodridge - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Gillian Goodridge - BA (Hons) Fine Art, part time year 4

No Title, 2010 – 2011, Oil on plastic (Knorr Stock Pots)

Art is the demonstration that the ordinary is extraordinary, Amedee Ozenfant

My inspiration: everyday life.  My passion: art.

I question the traditional distinction between the realms of art and everyday life by blurring the boundary between these realms through the re-presentation of readymades, assisted readymades and everyday, commonplace experiences. 

I transform everyday objects by applying simple interventions in form and/or presentation, changing their status from commonplace objects to art objects.  By shifting the context in which the viewer encounters these objects, I aim to turn the previously banal into the exceptional and unexpected.

Underside No Title, 2010 – 2011, Oil on plastic (Knorr Stock Pots)

Detail No Title, 2010 – 2011, Oil on plastic (Knorr Stock Pots)

Robin Mackenzie - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Robin Mackenzie - BA (Hons) Illustration, year 2



The Bucket People

The Bucket People came about from exploring traditions that may be wasted or lost in the future, activities such as wassailing, conker fights and real afternoon tea.  These, and many other old customs are such a huge part of our culture and heritage, it would be such an awful shame if they were forgotten.

The pieces are of course based around the plastic buckets; I wanted to offset these old traditions with the new and the colourful.  This is coupled alongside the acrylic paintings; they stare out from a different time, wanting you to join with them, to live and breathe tradition once again.

You did do it with plastics

Back in February MoDiP put out a call for work produced by staff and students at the AUB.  We were amazed by the response we had and have put together a fantastic display alongside our exhibition You can do it with plastics.

We would like to thank every one who submitted work towards this exhibition and will be featuring each artist's work in future blog posts.

Futureproof Plastics Symposium

The symposium took place last Wednesday, 18 May. It was well attended by people from many different backgrounds: academics, artists, designers, conservators and curators, who travelled from far afield. They made it a lively and intriguing event and we would like to thank everyone who attended for making it that way.

Mathew Philip provided a stimulating  introduction to polymers and their impact on every day life. Chistopher Pett showed us how single-source plastics - computer casings and disposable beakers branded by the Eden Project - can be recycled on an industrial scale but also higlighted the challenges such production produces. Julie Behetsa told us about the new fabrics she is weaving from recycled plastics as part of her practice-led research project at the Royal College of Art. Emma Neuberg showed us some beautifully embellished plastics and other materials embellished beautifully with plastics. She also floated the idea of a massive industrial park of recycled plastics. Nora Fok showed us the astoundingly beautiful wearable sculptures she makes from plastics, mainly nylon. Richard Liddle enaged us with videos of his products made from recycled plastics in production. Brenda Keneghan gave us an insight into the aims and achievements of the Preservation of Plastic ARTefacts (PopART)in heritage collections project. And finally Richard Jones showed us how polymer nanotechnology can imitate biological behaviour and intrigued us with the production of a tiny living plastic muscle.

The proceedings were videoed and will be made available on our website, so, if you missed it, you will  in time be able to find out what went on.

MoDiP would like to thank the speakers for making the event such a success and also the V&A and the PopART project for suggesting that we host the event and for providing the funding to unpin it.

You can do it with Plastics

Our new exhibition, You can do it with Plastics, is now open and will be throughout the summer.

This exhibition explores the relationship between material and design in relation to plastics. The earliest wonder of plastics was thought to be the extent to which they could convincingly substitute for a wide range of materials as different as say stone and lace. However plastics have liberated design from the constraints of traditional materials. Something made of plastic can be any shape or colour and have a greater variety of texture, strength, density, flexibility and weight than any other material. Plastics can also be mixed with other materials and thus extend their potential.  Exploitation through design of developments in plastics during the last 100 years has transformed the manufactured environment and achievement within it. 

Plastics are now the group of materials with the most uses in the world. This exhibition focuses on specific applications of plastics in order to demonstrate how the properties of plastics have influenced design and how the contribution of plastics is distinct from that of other materials.

Our upstairs exhibition space shows objects from the MoDiP collection, whilst our downstairs cases display work created by both AUB staff and students working with plastics as their core material.