‘1 Year Of Plastic Waste’
Recycled plastics compiled from 12:00am on the 1st of January 2019 till 11:59pm, 31st December 2019
Variable Dimensions
‘1 Year of Plastic Waste’ : Artist Statement
Plastic. What a great contribution it is to the world we live in. We can take away food & groceries with the greatest of ease. Products are packaged cheaply and efficiently shipped to its consumers. Companies can make more profit. It’s a wonderful invention.
Yet, due to mismanagement and a lack of awareness and foresight, the world today is having a plastic crisis. It threatens all wildlife and marine life. Plastic waste is overflowing and huge chunks of plastic waste washes up on islands in many parts of the world. Including islands in Malaysia. Plastic from other countries are being shipped to Malaysia for storage and disposal. I would never in my lifetime have thought that garbage collection had become a source of income for our beautiful country Malaysia.
To combat this or to just simply help the situation in my own way, I’ve begun an experiment. The premise is simple – Whatever plastic I come across daily for 1 year / 365 days, I will keep. I won’t let it flow into the plastic waste economy. No plastic that comes through me will go into the environment. The project began at 12am on the 1st of January 2019 and it will end at 11:59pm on the 31st of December 2019. Now 7 months into the project I believe I will continue this project for my entire lifetime. From this project I’ve seen firsthand what my waste looks like : Ie. What products has the most wastage, what products I can do without, what products I can refuse to take plastic from, etc.
In my installation I’d like to show viewers what a full year of plastic that I use, looks like. I’m only one person and from what I gather the installation will look quite impressive yet awful at the same time. I want viewers to imagine how much plastic is used by the 7.5 billion people on this planet. It’s used in packaging tissue papers. It comes in cigarette boxes. It’s used in take-away food and drinks. The stuff that wraps the fruits you buy. The list goes on and on to no end.
The practice has also led me to change my habits. I now rationalize where I buy my food and other things based on how the vendors use their plastic. I’ve also come to realize that the large corporations don’t care about the environment. Unless you and I – the public, demand changes. Over the recent years, many counties have stepped up their waste management. Some countries have banned the use of plastic bags. Others have banned the use of cardboard packaging boxes and many private companies have begun selling fresh produce without plastic wrapping. This is a great step forward in curbing and reducing the wastage we see today. But more needs to be done. And with individuals standing up and demanding a new way of approaching and dealing with waste management – The world will become a better place.
Over the past 7 months this plastic waste has taken up space not only in my physical realm, it has invaded the spaces in my mind too. When the year is up, I will dump all this plastic waste into an industrial compacting machine and compress the waste into a cube-like form. I am excited to see what one entire years worth of plastic will look like, compressed to its most compact form. I will then use resin / epoxy to bind the materials together to create a solid cube of waste – Which will be shown to the public in an exhibition setting.
‘Ameliorate’ Press Release
In 2019, in response to an increased awareness of pollution & sustainability, I set out to collect and store all plastic waste that I used personally – for an entire year. The plan was to display, curated by month, the entirety of my plastic consumption which took place over 365 days. In the next stage, I’d compact & compress everything, hopefully, into a minute form (I’m hoping it’ll be around the size of a small football) and to cast it in resin. Sealing and making it a piece of sculptural art forever.
2 years later, I was contacted by Lynn and Burhanuddin Bakri from NST’s Galeri Prima to participate in their Sustainable Environmental Arts Assemble (SEAA) campaign; to feature in a group show called ‘Ameliorate’. I proposed this installation and was accepted into the show, thankfully, alongside artists like Liu Cheng Hua, Fadhli Ariffin, Sukor Romat, Faizal Suhif, Fauzin Mustafa et al.
I encountered some problems during the collection phase. Storage and cataloging, but the most life changing issue I faced was; If I am responsible for collecting, storing and organising my own plastics – I had to make some serious decisions about who and where I bought my goods and materials from (not to mention what I chose to buy and consume). I realised that we take for granted the idea of waste disposal. After we take out the trash, that’s the end. Out of sight, out of mind. But what if you were solely responsible for your own waste disposal? You’d start thinking differently. I did.
Thankfully, I’m less OCD now and have been living again like a normal human being. Having gone through this transformative process, I’m more mindful about how I deal with waste products. Questions still linger; How do we overcome this hurdle? What companies are making the effort towards sustainable living? What products are zero waste? It’s an ongoing battle and I’m giving props to those at the forefront of this fight.
I hope you’ll come see the show. The artists have all outdone themselves in the materiality, art making and dialogue on the issue of sustainability. ‘Ameliorate’ runs from the 21st October – 22rd November 2021 at Galeri Prima in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur.
– Nicholas Choong, 27th October, 2021
NICHOLAS CHOONG 