#greenprint studios

Early this morning Reza and I conducted an interview with Captain Hayden Smith from Sea Cleaners, an organisation that goes around Auckland’s coastlines every day to collect waste. We thought that he would be a really good person to talk to since he was at the front line of what happens when waste disposal goes wrong. We were not aware of this but it turned out that Sea Cleaners actually worked with Foodstuffs to create the Bag Vote last year that asked customers if they would want to see a phase-out of plastic bags. Through this partnership, Foodstuffs began phasing out single-use plastic bags which then gave the government a foundation to implement the plastic bag ban. I personally found this really interesting as previously we believed that the only way that change within businesses could be achieved with government intervention. In this case however, Foodstuffs acted first. The reason they did this is that over the past 4 years, they had been building a relationship with Sea Cleaners so that they can be associated with the company and as a condition Sea Cleaners had Foodstuffs conduct the Bag Vote. By being associated with Sea Cleaners, Foodstuffs can be presented as a more environmentally active company which is good in the consumer’s eyes.

We asked him what his opinion was as to why people generally don’t care about how they dispose of waste. His response was that people don’t actually see the piles of rubbish as generally, the environments that people populate are clean. i.e. streets, offices, schools. however all of the rubbish actually ends up in oceans, forests etc. “We see the unseen” Other views that he had was that he’d like to see container deposits opened up to include anything with a bar-code. This way, even if people do litter, you could have kids picking rubbish off streets for pocket money. He did acknowledge the difficulty of logistics with this though. He also said that in an ideal world he would like to see that everyone picks up one piece of rubbish a day. This would also implement values of correct waste management and reduce the chance of them littering with their own waste. In terms of our installation, he expressed his satisfaction with most installations that use salvaged waste to build something, saying that at the end of the day it’s still rubbish and will eventually end up in landfill. He mentioned that he’s talked with schools who wanted to create artwork around sustainability and that he heavily advocated for painting murals to promote change. This is definitely something to keep in mind for our own project.

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/10/646413667/our-better-nature-how-the-great-outdoors-can-improve-your-life

The latest NPR Hidden Brain episode titled “Our Better Nature: How The Great Outdoors Can Improve Your Life” discusses how beneficial surrounding ourselves in nature is for the physical, mental and socio-economical aspects of life are. While listening I couldn’t help but tie this in with our project and the drawings that I’ve been working on. I’ve been drawing up the two states and including lots of greenery in the “good” future. While doing this, I was wondering how this would be perceived by the audience. Would it be interpreted as a future that is more advanced as they don’t need to expand and concrete over nature, or one that is technologically behind as there are no impressive structures that stretch the landscape?

For some people, this ^ is an impressive and desirable future. This podcast was great in terms of backing up my perception of an advanced future being one that has integrated into nature instead of replacing it. The part that I found most interesting was how images of nature calm people and immediately has positive connotations associated. This makes me confident that by including images of nature in the “good” future it becomes clear to the audience that this is the intended “good” future. 

Some other interesting points are that when there’s a large amount of nature around communities, gun crime is reduced by 9%. There a significant drop in sickness and also anxiety. All of which has massive financial benefits and overall improves quality of life. 

It also reminded me of a reference from last semester which was Le Corbusier's Broadacre City. Where he argued that the metropolis is undesirable and so designed a community that took the modern lifestyle and put it in a more sparse setting focused on the quality of life. You can see the prominence of nature in his vision.  

We’ve encountered some hiccups in our original direction for the project. Looking at the Auckland Council’s waste management plan, it was clear that the primary source of waste was commercial. Unfortunately, this is also the hardest thing to address as changes can only be made at a government level. As a third party, we were hoping to gain insight from both the council and businesses to come up with a design solution that takes into account the concerns and goals of both. Alas, both Reza and Jolie’s contacts in the Auckland council couldn’t find the time to participate in a quick interview and directly contacting businesses proved futile. We unanimously decided that the chance of us finding any sort of insight into commercial waste was unrealistic. Thus, using the research that we’ve collected over the past couple of week we decided that it was best to still continue on the path of New Zealand’s environmental sustainability but targeting consumers. This allows for us to make our Open Studio presentation targeted to those actually coming to open studio.

Coincidentally though, there has been a government enforced change in waste management recently. That is the ban on single use plastic bags within the next year. Reza, Jolie and I found that this issue would be a really good focus for our Studio Project due to its relevance and the fact that some people have reservations around the idea. For example, ACT party leader David Seymour saying that the ban would “punish responsible consumers and may produce worse environmental outcomes." We’d like to create an installation that works to address this hesitation for the switch to plastic bags by creating awareness of the environmental impact. Of course, there are a lot of art installations that attempt to do this. For example, animals made out of salvaged waste.

Urgh, The challenge is that we have is to present this in a unique way that actually stays with the viewer after they leave the exhibit. And not to make it look heckin ugly.

The ban on plastic bags actually means that the public has to adopt new habits, i.e. remembering to pack reusable bags when they go shopping.