An artist that has been featured here before on this blog is Canadian born Aurora Robson. She’s one of the leading artists using plastic debris. Her creations intercept the waste stream and by doing so she is finding ways to utilize waste by turning it into sculptures and installations.
Plastic debris
One of those installations is called ding dang. It’s an art piece created in 2017 and is made by welding plastic debris, hardware, LED and solar panels. The first time I saw this, unfortunately not in real life, I was mesmerized by the flowing form, color and the way it is showing the parts it is made of. The way it is hanging in the Arboretum’s glasshouse is just amazing. The sculpture has the following dimensions: 275 cm x 275 cm x 102 cm.
Why plastic?
Aurora’s first motive to start working with plastic wasn’t because of the environment but because she thought the material had many qualities she wanted to explore. As a child, she had many nightmares and these were an inspiration for her sculptures. One day she almost tripped over a stack of plastic bottles that were laying around outside of her Brooklyn studio. That is when she came up with the idea of using them to make art: “Using art, which is a global language, to talk about a global nightmare.” Aurora transforms these thoughts into something uplifting and positive. Some sculptures are made out of thousands of PET plastic bottles.
Aurora Robson:
“We think of plastic as disposable when it is precisely the opposite, so I extract it from its problematic destructive fate and utilize its potential to become a source for enjoyable reflection.”
International collective
Robson is also the founding artist of Project Vortex, an international collective of artists, designers, and architects who also work in innovative ways with plastic debris. Robson is passionate about developing integrative methods for artists and designers to use plastic debris as raw material. Since 2014, Robson has been developing and assisting with the implementation of a course called Sculpture + Intercepting the Waste Stream designed to foster creative stewardship through academia at colleges, universities and high schools around the world.
Design by Aurora Robson
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