Creativity in Context: I’m Not Interested in Environmentalism Though!

What is it I’m interested in?

It’s more the way of upcycling and reusing materials are presented – in a less po-faced, serious, snobbish way, demonstrating the British tradition of it. I was poised to look into resource depletion facts – which I may still do – but is this not going down the same route everyone else goes down (po-faced)?

Rather than scaring or shocking people into reusing/upcycling, could I enthuse them via this British tradition and humour?

The question then is what part does Localism play? Does it need to be there? It’s part of my personal work but what does it add to the message of reusing/upcycling?

Well, other countries make things which we import. This is bad for our economy. Many industrial places have done terribly out of deindustrialisation. We rely on other countries to provide us with the materials we need. This insatiable demand causes a lot of problems. Vietnam produces a lot of our cheap instant coffee. It’s got to the point now where the soil’s depleted and the country’s heading for disaster. Australia’s resource boom sees Aborigines being pressured off their land. The Amazon rainforest is chopped down to provide grazing land for cheap beef.

By reducing demand for materials, reusing what we’ve already got, the intensity of demand will lessen, so the damage done will go down. Demand for materials is linked with a global economy, becoming less globalist and thinking about what we already have around us reduces demand. It’s about shrinking perspective – what have I got in my garage?

Maybe not all my work needs to be localist. Localism is an interest of mine, but the focus of the Creativity in Context work could be on presenting upcycling/reusing materials as part of a British tradition, possibly also lateral thinking.

I don’t suppose my suggestions need to be practical. Contemporary art isn’t about practicality, it’s about communicating a message in an original way and bringing our attention to a debate. Actually, bollocks to it, my suggestions can be as impractical as they like. It’s all about the message.