Festus Iranlade Adeyemi
This piece titled, ‘Plastics Procession’. was one of my ongoing PhD experimental repurposed art constructions. The goals were first, to determine the extent to which recycled waste materials can be reused as paints in constructing acceptable artworks instead of conventional ones like acrylics, oil colours, and watercolours. Also, to determine the extent to which artworks created from waste can take a campaign role by encouraging Lagosian to see waste as valued items. This is to encourage waste rethinking, recycling, and reclaiming against the careless disposal of waste in Lagos mainland area of Lagos, Nigeria.
In this experimental art test, a giant plastic bottle was depicted as swallowing other plastic containers. The line that projected a demarcation in the experiment was an attempt at mapping out Lagos areas, and the sites where waste issues are predominant. Loughborough University used directional maps was employed to separate the giant bottle at the top left and right part of the piece’s bottleneck. In reusing Loughborough University collage matter, I intend to demonstrate how the University is part of the global support for recycling to prevent pollution.
Materials used to create the ‘Plastic Procession’ include Plastics, polystyrene and its coloured ‘take-away’ offshoot, coloured serviettes, or napkins, and single-use discards as depicted in the work. These waste items are part of the replicas of frequently discharged items inside the Akoka canals in Yaba, the mainland part of Lagos.
The careless habit of Lagos indiscriminate discarding is common when it rains. A handful of Lagosian have the notion that their waste can be disposed of through the gutters. Meaning that they think that it can be transferred to a safer zone through the rain-flow journey to the canals in the surrounding.
This habit is unhealthy as the items thrown in the drain kill aquatic creatures in the oceans. Besides, the waste that clogged to the drains later provides a breeding avenue for mosquitos and rodents to breed and multiply themselves. This situation results in dangerous health issues like malaria fever, cholera and other tropical diseases to the community. Also, these sicknesses are recorded as being the highest causes of death cases of infants and people with low immunity in Africa.
Therefore, the experimental artwork aimed to sensitize Lagosian about the danger associated with such careless and unhealthy discarding by using the very items people tend to discard as art materials to showcase the value embedded in them. Also, it is hoped that the artwork encourages them when used as campaign tools to see the beauty aspect of the perceived waste when artistically and innovatively reused. Lagosian are further gently inspired (nudge) through the creation about the need to recycle waste instead of perceiving them as worthless articles.
Consequently, repurposing single-use waste as paint as demonstrated in the ‘Plastic Procession’ artwork instead of carefree discarding them could assist in cleaning identified spaces around Yaba, the mainland axis of Lagos. The recycled waste also provides useful art materials in the schools and for artists, serves as campaign proof for waste values and assists in restoring healthy landscapes in similar climes like Lagos.