2020?, 2008 was a beautiful and inspiring "evolving art installation". With this project, Melbourne based
artist Ash
Keating, together with a number of invited artists, aimed to draw attention to the sheer amount
of CLEAN WASTE that goes into our
landfills each year. This included exploring issues such as excessive consumerism, questioning industrial
waste management and exploring sustainability in artistic
practice.
By all means a huge agenda! However, the advantage of an artistic
cross-disciplinary collaboration is that you can achieve greater
impact because the outcomes usually exceed one person's professional and
personal capacity.
INSPIRATION AND CONCEPT
Keating
says his inspiration for
2020? came during his employment as a waste
auditor in Melbourne and Adelaide in 2003/04 where he witnessed
hundreds of trucks dumping large quantities of good resource and
materials.
The type of clean waste Keating was talking about
included a variety of wood, steel, aluminium electrical wiring
and plastic, vinyl and so forth - resources many artists cannot afford!
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'Waste' - Photo: Ash Keating (copyright Ash Keating)
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Keating's
concept, an "evolving installation ", became part of the Next Wave Festival in
Melbourne. The festival's theme 'Closer Together' acted as the
... the thematic
string that links the projects and performances of the festival, the notion of
being closer together sought to solicit from the viewer an emotional and
critical response—an intense physical shudder, a yearning for something better or
possibly a reflective exploration of one’s sense of self in an increasingly
hyper real world.. (Goh 2008)
Therefore,
participating artists played an important role in educating the public about
the massive amounts of clean industrial waste that ends up in landfills around
Australia.
According to The National Waste Report 2010
- 43,777,000 tonnes of waste were
generated in Australia in 2006-07
- If waste generation grows at
4.5 % per annum, Australia will generate 81,072,593 tonnes of waste in
2020-21
This effectively halves the
life cycle of our landfills in the future! For this alone, and for many other reasons it is not difficult to comprehend why this project was publicly funded and supported by various government bodies and industry partners.
2020?,
2008 Sponsors
EPA Victoria, The Department of Sustainability and
Environment, SITA Environmental Solutions provided in kind support with
materials and workers to help identify, collect and transport to the Meat
Factory. Other supporter included the Ergas Collection, the City of Melbourne,
Trafficlight, Australian Food and Grocery Commission, Australian Sustainable
Industry Research Centre and Sustainable Learning Australasia
THE EVOLVING INSTALLATION PROCESS
For
2020, 2008 Keating intercepted two 23 metre bulk bins of
industrial waste collected at Hampton Park landfill. With the
help of SITA it was delivered the Melbourne Meat
Markets for the purpose of an
evolving installation project. The project ran from the 23.5.
2008 to the 31. of May 2008 during the Melbourne Next
Wave Festival.
The
evolving installation process began with Keating...
creating a structure and
foundation with the waste in the centre of the space, and on the evening of May
15th condensed the waste into a large pile with assistance from
Mark Freeman, Lucas Maddock, Campbell Drake, Ardi Gunawan and Darren Munce.
Following the opening night the pile was dismantled and went through
a 'process of segregation' with the assistance of Bridie
Lunney, Kay Abude, Ariel Aguilera, Lindsay Cox, John Borely and Next Wave
volunteers Tessa Chong, Sophia Constandine and Alex Hamilton Smith. (Keating
2008).
For the Opening Night
Installation the collected materials were piled up against a backdrop of
re-cycled and painted billboards and illuminated with theatrical
lighting. According to Keating (2008) the pile was formed similar
to how 30 to 40 meter trucks dump waste at
a landfill. Different materials ’get caught up and
tangled amongst one another and poke out as the gravity of the load comes
crashing down'.
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| Opening night installation view, photo Louis Porter (copyright Ash Keating) |
From
then onwards the space was a beehive of activity in a state of constant flux
with invited artists transforming the materials and space which
was recorded and video streamed into an exhibition area.
Kay
Abude explains that her performance was about
... .physically
pushing waste out of the spotlight - the waste that is often hidden from public
view and the amount of waste that goes into landfill that most people are
unaware of. The performance was about 6-7 minutes long and it involved waste materials
scattered on the cobblestone of the Meat Market with a spotlight above focusing
on the waste. The spotlight moved 5 times and my task was to repetitively push
the waste out of the spotlight back into the darkness out of sight and out of
mind.
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Working process Kay Abude '2020 in the spotlight'
Photos: Amy Johannes and Ryan L. Foote (copyright Ash Keating)
|
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Working process Kay Abude '2020 in the spotlight'
Photos: Amy Johannes and Ryan L. Foote (copyright Ash Keating)
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A VERY TRICKY QUESTION...
At some stage Fayden d'Evie (cited in Keating 2008) poses the question if
...by fetishising the
materials, has 2020? subverted its own premise and unwittingly reinforced the
desirability of industrial waste? One logic could run: if big waste leads to
big possibilities for big art, then maybe bigger waste might lead to bigger
possibilities for bigger art?
2020?’s
intention was to temporarily intervene the dumping of the materials used in the installation to create awareness of daily excessive
industry wastage. When it was decided to allow artists to stake a claim to
their works and select materials from the remaining waste/resources most
refused! And so - after a short lived existence as art - most of the materials continued their journey to the landfill.
The tension created by exposing the materials as resource/art and then
discarding them was a powerful act to raise awareness because it does not allow
the reality of the daily burials of clean waste in our landfills be cushioned
by a small "rescue operation" or great sales at closing night. Rather, as Bianca
Hester pointed out, for artists the challenge is to
to radically re-conceptualise and consider a move to a non-material art practice
with zero waste. 2020? successfully stirred
a "yearning for something better" in
artists and audience....reaching towards a 2020 with ZERO WASTE becoming a
reality! For that to happen we all need to cooperate...
What can we learn from 2020?, 2008 Ash Keating?
2020?, 2008 raised many questions which should be helpful in
finding a way forward. If
"creativity" is 'an adaptive feature of normal cognitive functioning
that evolved to aid problem solving under conditions of uncertainty"
(Heerwagen 2002) then the first step to problem solving is surely the
awareness that there is a problem and the belief that a solution can be found. Otherwise, we will be looking at 81,072,593 tonnes of waste per year going into landfills in Australia alone by 2020-21!
Here are a few lessons I have learned from my own trips to the landfill and access to documentation about 2020?, 2008:
- More respect for workers at our landfills is warranted not only for the nature of the work they do but also for the risks workers are exposed to and the skills necessary to deal with an increasingly complex mixture of waste. This means that local authorities will need to ask themselves how they can lift the profile of waste management.
- When a landfill site is audited the results could be used to educate the public.
- Accessing clean waste from a landfill site is a
time consuming and expensive undertaking. Collected from multiple sites,
clean waste is transported to the landfill and buried. However, if it was
to be re-used it would need to be audited and stored before being sold with permission from the original creators of the waste.
- Unless
making clean waste available as a resource has a measurable value or
benefit (as an income or saving) for the industries who create it as
well as the local authorities who bury it currently there will be
no real incentive to view clean waste as a resource. How can
we turn old perceptions on it's head and open up to the possibility of re-using
at least that which is desired at a local level to begin with?
- For
this to happen, how can we, as a community, become more aware about the
type and amounts of clean waste that ends up in our landfills and gain access
to it at a reasonable cost?
- Who
could be the possible customers and partners of clean waste reduction in
our own community? (Private businesses, NGOs, NPOs and private individuals who
would like to support a move towards ZERO WASTE? How can those people become
known to those who generate clean waste?
- How can Shire Council initiate/support initiatives that create new networks
within our town boundary? How can a system be put in place
that allows for access to clean waste? Who would manage this.
- The
need for transport to and from the landfill excludes many who might
contribute and benefit. How can we create win-win situations for local people
and the town as a whole who will benefit from a cleaner environment and longer
life cycle of their landfill?
- The
need for physical labour makes working with clean waste a time consuming
and exhausting exercise. How can the need for physical labour in clean waste
management be reduced?
- One
of the most important questions is: How can "clean
industrial waste" re-enter a community without reinforcing the idea that
wastefulness is OK?
- What
existing online sites such as Facebook, twitter or physical building sites could be utilised to trade clean waste - trying to stop any clean waste from going to landfills in the first place?
- Communication
between authorities, interested parties and the public will be the key to
creating ZERO WASTE communities. The challenge will be to go beyond the usual low key educational approaches and instigate a new era of collaborating with the
whole community, including the arts. A festival - as demonstrated by Ash Keating - is the perfect opportunity to kick-start the process anywhere ...
2020?, 2008 artists included
Ash Keating coordinator, curator, artist and collaborator
with Kay Abude (installation/sculpture/performance), Campbell Drake
(architect /artist/lecturer), Ardi Gunawan (sculpture and installation)
, James Guerts, Bianca Hester (sculpture), Inverted
Topology, Susan Jacobs (drawing/sculpture, performance, video and
installation) , Rus Kitchin, Bridie Lunney (sculpture, installation)
, Lucas Maddock (street art, graphic communication, art & text,
installation, urban intervention, Pandarosa (Ariel Aguilera & Andrea
Benyi - design, installation, interior and illustration work, Mia Salsjo
(sound composition) and Soo-Joo Yoo.
THANK YOU
Ash Keating for your generosity - providing information, photos and feedback
Kay Abude for information and images
relating to your contribution.
All the inspiring artists out there who keep me motivated and inspired...
Selected
Bibliography
2020?
(2008) Project Publication (catalogue) via email by Ash Keating
Abude,
K (2013) "2020? in the spotlight" - email exchange
Alan,
D (2010). 2020? Art and Rubbish A Project By Ash Keating
(video), Scarab Studio
Film,
Davis,
J (2009). 2020? - Review by Jared Davis (blog contribution)
retrieved 13.3.2013
from
Goh,
L. (2008). Ash Keating 2020? in eyeline contemporary visual arts (np),
Keating,
A (2008). Accounting part one and two of 2020? in 2020? project
catalogue
