YORKTON – A new exhibit at the Community pARTners Gallery is a collection of trash, literally.
Arianna Richardson's "Surface All the Way Through" is an exhibition of textile and text-based signs assembled from discarded plastic using hobby-craft techniques.
Richardson told SaskToday.ca that the art pieces in the exhibition are made entirely of plastic or plastic material that comes from plastic waste, packaging or craft supplies purchased at thrift stores.
"It's an exploration of environmentalism," said Richardson who said they've been focusing on the art style for over six years.
Richardson said the idea to use discarded plastics came about after living in Halifax and learning of the mass plastic pollution in the world's oceans.
"There's a lot more talk about plastic pollution in relation to the ocean and the big garbage patches — I was learning about all of that. Coming from the prairies I knew about it but it was a new conversation to me in a lot of ways," said Richardson.
"I was sitting around in my studio looking at all of the objects and materials that I had collected for inspiration and I realized it was all made of plastic. I started to work from there and tried to reduce my own impact because art making and the gallery system is really quite wasteful in a lot of ways and I just wanted to reduce my own impact. I started looking around my house and thinking 'what could I be using that I'm just throwing into the recycling bin right now.'"
On display at the gallery are several pillows which Richardson has crafted. When looking at the pillows from a distance one might assume they're made of a glitter product, but up close they're reveal to be shredded potato chip bags.
"That's quite a process," said Richardson, noting the chip bags were collected from friends and garbage cans at the school she was studying at. From there they were washed, dried and shredded before they became the stuffing for pillows.
"A lot of the others pillows are just stuffed with crumpled up plastic — soft plastic packaging that comes wrapped around everything that we buy. Some of it is the plastic clam shells — harder plastic — but I crush it up and try and make it more compact. Bubble wrap. That sort of stuff."
Given the nature of the art, it's expected that Richardson would practice an environmentally conscious lifestyle even attempting to maintain a zero-waste policy.
"I try my best but there are a lot of limitations to what a person can realistically do," said Richardson.
As an example, Richardson said one of the things they do to have less of an impact on the environment, would be to shop at bulk food stores and bring reusable glass containers when it came to the purchase of things like oatmeal.
"It's really difficult and time consuming to live in an eco-conscious way. You have to have extra time to go to all the different stores where you can get things refilled and it's often more expensive — ironically," said Richardson.
"It has that economic factor — me as an individual — I can't really afford to buy the highest quality of whatever thing. I end up buying something cheaper that ends up breaking and it just ends up in the landfill. It's hard not to feel trapped by all of that," said Richardson.
"Even when I really really try I still end up with so much plastic packaging so it feels kind of impossible to achieve. That's when I decided I should just try and use all of this as much as I can in my art practice to feel better about my forced complicity in the cycle of making garbage and creating garbage all the time," said Richardson.
Outside of the environmental undertones of the exhibit, Richardson said the the show is about decoration.
"Plastic and plastic materials really have this flashy seductive quality that I like to play with. The subject matter of garbage and consumption and plastic pollution — that's all really heavy and makes you feel bad when you think about it," said Richardson.
"Making it bright and playful and really decorative draws people in and gets their guard down. Once you realize 'oh wow this is made of plastic package or this is hundreds of chip bags shredded up inside this heart-shaped pillow' then they can maybe think about the issue in a way that doesn't feel scary or make them feel as bad," added Richardson.
"Using playful absurdity and that sort of thing — I hope it can help people think about that and make those changes easier. If you're feeling bad and guilty it's harder to want to do better. But maybe if it's funny and you get involved and then you can think about it — that's just my hope anyways."
Surface All the Way Through is on now until Oct. 17 at the Community Gallery pARTners.
