In the last few posts we looked at recycling materials to create something new in interior design and fashion, but artists are also proving that materials can be recycled to create new works and raise in this way awareness about environmental issues.
Among the finalists of Natsiaa 2021, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award for example (won by Western Australian artist Timo Hogan) there is a group of textile sculptures representing a group of rodents that may call to mind the mice plague that Australia had between 2020 and 2021, but it is actually dedicated to the Bramble Cay Melomys and it is made by the Erub Arts Collective.
This little brown rodent was considered as extinct already in 2016 by the Queensland state government, but its extinction was officially recognised by Australia only in 2019.
The rodent that lived solely on the tiny sand island of Erub in the Torres Strait, near the coast of Papua New Guinea (PNG), has not been seen since 2009 and its case is considered as the first mammalian extinction caused by human-induced climate change.
You can have a better look at this work and at the other works celebrated in this award, by taking a virtual gallery tour. If you look close, you may realise that the peculiar thing about this group of sculptures is the fact that they are made with ghost nets, a material the Erub Arts Collective specializes in.
In the early '90s a women's craft group started working in a local school in Erub, the most north-eastern islands of the Torres Strait, home to around 400 people and boasting great seafaring heritage traditions, going from elaborately decorated canoes and carved stones to intricate dance costumes and weaponry.
As the years passed, they became a proper group of artists with an intergenerational learning space and specialist arts facilities, working with different mediums. At the heart of Torres Strait's spiritual life is the belief that islands, sea and sky and all of nature possesses a soul or spirit. Knowledge of sacred relationships is maintained in contemporary art practices and is vital to artists as they explore place and identity, promote their culture and protect the environment.
Throughout the years the Erub Arts Collective artists created collaborative works to celebrate the myths and legends of the Torres Strait, introducing in 2008 a new material, ghost nets.
Erub Arts first started creating utilitarian objects such as bags with this material, but then moved onto decorative pieces, sculptures and large installations featuring marine animals. Erub Arts organised the first commercial ghost net exhibition in 2014 in Sydney.
The collective started repurposing the discarded nets and ropes as the group knew they pose a serious threat to the environment.
In a booklet by the Erub Arts collective, the group highlights that "90% of the marine debris entering the coastal regions of Northern Australia is of a fishing nature and originates from all parts of South East Asia. The ghost nets (abandonded fishing nets) drift aimlessly indiscriminately killing as they travel with the ocean currents. 80% of this catch is marine turtles. The collection and disposal of ghost net has also become a huge logistical problem as the areas of Australia that are affected are sparsely inhabited by Indigenous people living in communities. The Ghost Net Movement world wide is rapidly expanding, striving to generate awareness, recycling and sustainability options that will rid the world’s oceans of ghost net."
The possibilities are endless for this material as the Erub Arts Collective can create all sorts of figures in a variety of sizes, using this materials. The best thing about them is that, rather than being merely decorative, the sculptures tell stories about local life and traditions, alerting people about the animal species that are being pushed towards extinction (in the case of the textile group sculpture for the Natsiaa 2021 award), but also reshifting the attention on the traditions of the Torres Strait islands and on the passion of their inhabitants for all marine creatures.
Rispondi