If you look around, there are many creative and artistic ways to approach recycling. One example we came across is artist Steve McPherson. For over 15 years Steve has been collecting objects from beaches on the North Kent Coast of the UK, and turning them into pieces of art. It started when he was a teenager running around the beaches with his friends looking for objects to burn. But as he grew older he started collecting pieces, turning them in to art and using them in his diaries and journals.
In his most recent work, Steve combines found objects from his local coast, with a summary that gives the object a potential identity and history. He is inspired by the fact that the objects are lost and then found, fills them with a story and an interconnectedness. However, he enjoys the fact that he doesn’t know the truth to why they are lost.
- The truth of these objects now becomes a matter for questioning and is itself filled with countless possible beautiful alternatives, Steve says.
The environmental issue is improtant for Steve. He is aware of that the mark he makes on the actual environment, by cleaning the beaches, is small compared to the actual problem. The art is his way of raising awareness to the problem.
- Plastic pollution is a growing problem, not a diminishing one, and we have yet to begin to understand its true impact or the long term cost to the environment and ourselves.
Steve’s art is not only a way to remind us that there’s more than one way to recycle, but he also reminds us that we’re all connected through the sea. He talks about the sea's way of being local and global at the same time.
- When someone throws something overboard on the coast of the USA it may end up in the Azores or Portugal or on the West coast of the UK. Connecting me, the finder, who is local, with the sea that brought it and the person who discarded it, which are or may be global. The world oceans are vast yet finite; they have no borders.
More info about Steve:
Steve McPherson
Steve McPherson - News and Events
MarinePlastic.org