Arts Thread

This collection of 3 artworks – “Can I still return to the Earth?” “It’s picturesque now,” and “A future is woven” – reflects on the state of our relationship with the environment through the manipulation of used materials originally created for single use. Soft plastics from retail waste are fused together create a textile that can be stitched and formed into 3D shapes, contemplating how the future of textiles might look when we can no longer grow natural fibres and must face the massive waste issues we have created. One of the most common symbols of prehistoric time, fossils tell us about the forms of life captured many years ago but they would no longer recognise the unnatural polymers that we have turned their kin into to create many of the items we use daily. Warm coloured skies are often a pretty sight but the red cast of bushfire smoke threatens to become a more familiar scene with increasingly intense and deadly summer seasons all over the world. Fungi might be the solution to our plastic problem at both ends. Recent developments have found ways to grow mycelium into specific shapes to replace protective plastic packaging while fungi in other places has demonstrated its ability to break down some of our imperishable plastics that can be found in landfills. But until that becomes a widespread solution, these artworks explore the possibility of material reuse in a post-apocalyptic world.