02.04.2019
This semester I have mostly looked at two artists, Mella Shaw and Mark Dion. 
Mella Shaw is a British artist who was featured at the Collect Open, Saatchi Gallery in 2018, and is now currently on a nationwide tour with her work, Harvest. Harvest is an installation in response to the statistic that by 2050, there will be a greater weight of plastic in the oceans than fish. This large scale installation includes hundreds of detailed press moulded and slip cast clay 'plastic' bottles, containers and fish, as Mella aims to search for practical solutions to our desperate situation. 
I took interest to her work as she too is tackling plastic pollution within our oceans through sculpture, but I also found the link to material and context fascinating. Clay is generally heavier compared to light weight plastic, and is natural in contrast to the man-made material. By using a heavier material, she is exaggerating the weight of the situation whilst not adding to the problem by creating more plastic. This is a detail you wouldn't necessarily realise until you researched into the work more. The idea of searching for information within the work intrigues me as it proves the facts are out there if we choose to listen/find them. We have lived off an out of sight out of mind ethic towards plastic and waste for decades, and that level of wilful ignorance needs to change. We all need to be researching and seeing for ourselves the detrimental effects of plastic as a material when it comes in contact with our environment and wildlife. This is a trait I wanted to transfer into my work with using polymer clay and plastic based materials for my sculptures.
It was really helpful to look into Mella's work as she is tackling the same issues and topics within her practice as mine, and is very much a current working artist. This was great to see the journey of her work, where its being displayed and how, and inspiring to see how artwork can impact the way people consider plastic consumption within their household.   

 

Mark Dion has also been a great influence. He is a conceptual artist widely known for his scientific presentations within his installations. I was looking more specifically into his 1999-2000 work, Landfill. The calculated chaos of the work and how it looks gradually built up from time, gives this sense of a natural accumulation. But natural feels like the wrong word as it's anything but. The mixture of plastic and waste is used as a record, where information collected are the consequences from life itself. The natural record of life should be the birds on branches or surrounding environment, instead of the rubbish we're leaving behind. As Mark has used a closed diorama, the space feels very claustrophobic and triggers an uncomfortable and desperate response. It feels as if you're looking through a window to another world or another reality. I think this creates some distance from our world and this imagined space (which isn't really imagined at all), instead of making the audience feel involved and also consumed. This piece is interesting though as it feels timeless, it could be about the past, present or future, and speaks a general warning about the destruction we're leaving behind, and the unhealthy relationship between humans and our environment. 

Mark Dion has been a great help for researching into successful installations, as I had never made a scene for myself before. He has an art for occupying a space without over filling it or not including enough elements. As his work tends to be based on factual and scientific messages, he translates this information into an immersive and inquisitive experience. Similar to what Mella did with material, Mark is answering most questions but allowing the audience to inquire themselves, what the work is about. Leaving room for exploring is vital to Marks work as its all about finding truth and encouraging change. This is a technique I ultimately used through my staged shop, PolluShine.