Trash Ecologies

Imagine if rubbish was able to merge with plants to create new lifeforms. What would our urban landscapes look like? Trash Ecologies is an ongoing project questioning our relationship with the objects we throw away, the plants in our spaces, habitat loss, uneven distribution of wealth, power and the colonial past & post-colonial future of our towns & cities. The aim is to make sculptures with 90-95% found materials to create still lifes that retell stories of the streets of Brighton & beyond in a new way, using waste with connections to places all over the world. Cans of Polish beer. Bottles of peach Fanta from Japan. Pizza boxes from the US. Through this practice, I am sculpting plants and trees that are native to the South Downs, some rare to see in my daily walks around the urban landscapes I live and work in, some thriving as ‘weeds’. How can we support life in all its forms in a harsh urban space, built on money from the British empire?