It was lovely recently to meet up with Bath and Bristol based photographer David Bone. David is interested in interested in harmful human impacts on the environment, for example current waste cultures. We are hoping that David will be able to work with us on the deep materialism project to produce professional photos of Alison’s work. In addition, drawing inspiration from William Morris’s ‘penny pamphlets’  a small book exploring ideas and artworks from our collaboration and individual projects.

David and Alison both recently had entries in  the  exhibition Unmaking Waste in Adelaide, South Australia! .

From the Foreword  to the Exhibition Catalogue

The world is full, and increasingly full of waste, much of it destructive of the environment we depend on. This is an insight especially significant in art and design, creating both new responsibilities and new opportunities. This exhibition is the collective response of many individual makers, from many creative disciplines, to this now unavoidable challenge.
The range and depth of this work, assembled together…We hope that viewing their work will provoke you, the visitor, not to anger or despair, but to more thoughtful reflection. Indeed, we would like to encourage you to consider with us the possibility of a more ‘circular’ future, where everything useful can enjoy some kind of second life, and where the need to deplete, poison, entangle or burn up the natural world to satisfy our needs is much reduced, if not entirely eliminated.

David’s Entry in the Exhibition

The Ghosts of Consumption
Materials: Print

A visual enquiry into consumer culture and a reflection of the geological footprint we are to leave behind. With estimates of more than 12 million tonnes of plastic being dumped into the world’s oceans every year, and with more microplastics in our seas than stars in the Milky Way, plastic waste is the ecological destruction of our time. Early 20th century perceptions of human affairs being wholly ‘separate’ and ‘other’ from nature is something that is endorsed throughout an era of conservation and preservation. Yet in this modern age of consumerism, the growing economic need for goods and the waste we produce has a profound effect on a changing environmental landscape.

The Ghosts of Consumption examines the contemporary archaeology of household commodities, through to its hostile convergence with the natural landscape. The work looks to
question the profound impact of contemporary culture on our ecology, challenging the
viewer to question their own personal impact. These questions of how we, as a commercial
generation play a monumental role in the permanent intrusion of plastic waste is juxtaposed against an unseen intervention and optimistic resilience.

Alison’sentry in the exhibition

 Book of (lost) knowledge (series)
Two found paper cups, one deconstructed and made into a concertina book 

The work comprises of two found paper coffee cups, objects currently discarded in their millions in our sophisticated modern lifestyles. One cup has been deconstructed and reconstructed to form a small concertina ‘book’. The title of the work refers to the intuitive ‘knowledge’ we used to possess to enable us to live in harmony with our environment, so that mutual flourishing was an accepted part of existence. Unfortunately exploitative practices have endured; capitalism and globalisation have taken their toll, hence my practice seeks a realignment of the material world, a reconsideration of what waste is and an equalisation of our relationship with it.

See the full catalogue here