Could you start out by telling me a little bit about yourself and your background, then how Rubbish Redesigned came about?
My background is textiles. I worked within that industry for quite a long time and about five or six years ago, I just had a little bit of an epiphany around trying to figure out why I was doing what I was doing, and where I wanted to have an impact. I realised it was just really hard to find sustainable materials or environmentally-friendly materials. That led me down what has been a six-year rabbit hole to now.
I started exploring questions like: What does a sustainable material look like? I eventually went back and did a Masters of Science to really dig down into what it means scientifically to create a sustainable material. Alongside that I have been working at STEAMhouse – which is a business-facing innovation centre in Birmingham – to support businesses, students, researchers, artists, creatives, and anyone who wants to explore with me what new material possibilities there are, and how we might use existing materials that we don't necessarily recognise the value of at the moment. That has really led me to the Rubbish Redesigned exhibition and also really nicely into working across the creative sector around these kinds of materials.
Could you tell me a little bit about the research process for the exhibition and the process of choosing the pieces?
It was a really wonderful process because I already work with a lot of different businesses and creatives across the city and further afield, working on these kinds of materials. So I've been a part of a lot of the development process with some of the exhibitors that are in the final exhibition. So really it was an opportunity for me to scope out all the different projects I've worked on and all the different individuals I've worked alongside. MAC was really keen to focus in on what felt like really unusual, or what we would associate as “big problem”, waste materials to try and help give the audience a real connection to the topic and an understanding of the opportunities.
So it was really interesting for me to delve back into that long list of creatives and start to think about what the real problems are, waste materials we might recognise, and who's working with those locally. The final selection was really about making sure we had a variety of different materials and different media and different outcomes at different scales, to really show the possibilities of working in this circular way with waste to produce things that are affordable, but also very high-end. We were trying to really show the depth and breadth of what's possible with working in this kind of way.
Some of it's really fascinating, like the airbags for example. I don't think I even comprehended that as a waste product, but it has to go somewhere so it must be an enormous problem.
That is exactly what we want the exhibition to do. There are some waste streams that were like: “OK, we know that we put that in the bin. Didn't know we could do that with it.” And then there are some waste streams where we're like: “Oh my god, why would we ever even think about that as a thing that has to end up in landfill?” Rhys Ellis designed the backpack from that particular waste stream and I was so excited that car airbags are pink. This is aesthetically so exciting that they are just this beautiful kind of soft pink, with a brighter pink stitching. It’s almost like it's made for something to be done with it, right?
Rhys Ellis used an airbag to make a backpack, as shown as part of Rubbish Redesigned
(Credit: Tegen Kimbley)
The starting point of this series is that, for most sane people, the science around the climate crisis is settled. We know there's a big problem and we know it's incumbent upon us to do something about it. But the next step is convincing people that it's worth doing, and it's worth doing now. So I wanted to ask how important it is to you that the arts as a sector finds a way to talk about the climate crisis in a practical way?
This is something that I feel so, so passionately about. I work with a lot of businesses that don't have a creative department and what I find is that those businesses really struggle to come up with out of the box ideas and think about how they can do things differently to look at opportunities around climate and sustainability. What I see time and time again is that artists, creatives, and people who have the ability to problem-solve in that way are just so insanely valuable to comprehend the challenge, understand what's needed, and then have the empathy to be able to go and talk to people and share that knowledge to build understanding around these challenges. They can then go away and figure out these amazing solutions, whether they be practical outputs for the commercial [world] or beautiful installations and ways of talking about these challenges.
So for me, art is almost critical. And what's really interesting is the particular area that I work in. My research is very much around natural materials and the whole drive of trying to find new material alternatives has been driven by the creative sector out of a real demand to try and find ways to do things better. So not only is the creative sector integral to actually creating change and making steps in the right direction, it's also driving it because I think there's such an understanding of that real need to have an ongoing conversation around climate.
Definitely. And for you, in the process of putting this exhibition together, what were the new things that you learned, even as someone who has been working in this space for a while?
For me, it was really interesting to start unpicking in a bit more detail some of the challenges of working with waste material by speaking to different artists and designers about the challenges they faced in producing some of the works that are on exhibition. That might be from an individual perspective in some of the actual health and safety risks associated with working with waste material. And then how do you overcome those and still find a way to create a community-engaged practice where it's safe for people? You want to encourage people. You don't want to scare people, but you do have to do these things in a safe way, all the way through to what it means to try and get these products onto the market and sell them.
Then there are some real challenges in legislation, which means that people don't want to touch stuff because they don't quite know what it is, even though it's better than what we already have. But they're risk-averse. I think actually [working on this] really showed the breadth and complexity of how hard it is to take on a challenge where you decide to work with a waste material as opposed to a virgin material off the shelf.
Rubbish Redesigned at MAC shows all manner of innovative design uses for waste
(Credit: Tegen Kimbley)
Even on a consumer level for us personally, there's such an uncertainty. If you've got a waste product and you don't know what to do with it, it does just go in the bin that goes to landfill, because of the research required to work out where it should go.
You do have to really go out of your way as a consumer, which is one of the real downsides still in terms of some of these recycling processes not being made more readily available. Everyone probably pops to the supermarket once a week and we have recycling centres at the supermarket, but a lot of the time they're quite narrow in terms of what they recycle. Our systems that we have at the moment don't really work for the kind of trajectory of where we need to go with this stuff. It's part of a much wider challenge.
More broadly, do you think that we're in a better state with the climate crisis than we were, say, a decade ago?
The optimistic side of me wants to say yes and, actually, I see so many exciting things happening. It feels like there's a real momentum and shift. I think I would say that genuinely, within the creative sector, it feels like there is a real push and a real understanding of what we need to do. There are definitely some industries that are maybe a little bit further ahead with how they might figure that stuff out, but I think there's also a lot of industries that maybe still have a head in the sand. I think there are definitely some areas where we're still really struggling.
If we think about the trajectory for 2030 and the targets that are in place for that, I think we're coming scarily close to the point where we might not quite hit what we need to hit. So I think it's really important to still maintain that understanding of actually, there's a long way to go, even though it does feel like there's some positive momentum.
I guess the positive to take from that is that the creative sector is further forward, and that's the sector that talks directly to the public. The science sector probably doesn't have a direct line to the public, whereas the arts do.
Absolutely, and I work with a lot of artists in particular whose work is all about creating the bridge. That’s working directly with scientists to try and find accessible ways to explain some of this research so the everyday person can really understand and also feel empowered to go out and know what they need to do differently to have that positive impact. That is such valuable work because the science is complicated and it is confusing. But actually, artists providing these really beautiful, very empathetic, and intimate ways of connecting emotionally as well as with the data and statistics means that people have an opportunity to really understand it for themselves and connect in their own way.
One exhibit as part of Rubbish Redesigned uses food waste to produce plant pots
(Credit: Tegen Kimbley)
Is there any other art that you've come across in any medium that you think is a particularly inspiring take on the climate crisis that has helped you to either understand or change your views a little bit?
Probably the most poignant project that I've supported and observed as it's flourished is led by an artist called Clare Hewitt, who is a photographer, in collaboration with two other artists: Danielle Phelps, who is a paper maker and illustrator, and Carolyn Morton, who works with plants and natural materials. They have collaborated over I think three to four years on a project focused on a collection of oak trees. She has documented how those oak trees behave as a community with one another, and she has connected those oak trees. She’s done lots of workshops looking at soil samples and how you document the change of the seasons and the way that these trees behave with one another in combination with local communities, looking at things like loneliness and isolation.
What she's found is that these trees really look after one another. They share nutrients, they communicate, and they talk through the soil. Clare has documented all of this and, between Danielle and Carolyn, they've provided natural paper made from things like mycelium and waste ingredients, and Carolyn has created inks from natural parts of the woodland to create this photo book, which is 100% natural and 100% biodegradable. It’s not only an amazing feat in itself to produce something like that, but it tells this beautiful story of how similar we really are as humans to all of the other living beings around us. It has been quite grounding and quite humbling for me. I think.
As a final point, what would be the piece of advice you'd give to people in the arts for what they can do to help tackle this crisis?
Start small because it can be really overwhelming and, if you try to tackle it all at once, then you can feel like you are on your own. Small, incremental changes make a massive difference. That's really important. There are lots of great tools online, whether it’s Julie's Bicycle or the Gallery Climate Coalition. There are things you can access to help support you. Also, talk to the other people around you. There will always be a community somewhere trying to do this work, and it's always nicer if you can do it alongside others because you've got that support and you've got those people behind you.
Finally, don't be afraid to be transparent. I think what I find really important is that it's really confusing, and it can be really hard to figure out what's good, what’s bad, or what's better. It's not black and white, so just be really open, really honest, and really transparent about what you're doing and where you still need to figure stuff out or you need help. We're all on the journey, and it is totally a journey. So I think, be really brave and share it with people, because a lot of the time you'll get ideas on how you might do some of the stuff that you haven't figured out yet.
It's really powerful that creatives find a way to connect with climate and find an approach, a language, a medium that you feel comfortable to start diving into this. Anyone who does that is going to have such an important impact in terms of how we bring people from outside the creative sector on board. If you feel like you're itching or you're interested or you don't know where to start, just do a little thing and move into the space. For me, it has been the most heart-warming, exciting space to be a part of because the people are so generous and the community is so rich. Even on the days where it feels hard, there are so many good people around you that it's really personally fulfilling as well, to feel like you can actually have an impact to make change.
Rubbish Redesigned is open as a free exhibition at the Midlands Arts Centre until 2nd March 2025.
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