12 Nov 2010

Everyday Objects Project

We were set a one week project to transform/rework/re-contextualise an everyday object. My group was given bin bags. We spent the first few days playing around with our material and brain storming ideas. We liked the idea of quantity.. one bin bag on its own is a very thin and flimsy piece of material but as soon as you start plaiting it together it can be ridiculously strong. So we made a lot of rope.. Also on the labels of bin bags they always tell you how many litres (of air) each bin bag holds.. but we thought what if this could be litres of water?

Our final idea was an instillation type piece, we filled bin bags with litres of water that made up a daily routine of water usage and waste. 1L of water weighs 1 killogram, so they weighed an absolute tonne, but we had our strong bin bag ropes to suspend them from the ceiling with. It was a long day setting up the bags and hoping that the hooks we'd superglued into the ceiling didn't give way and send water splashing everywhere in the middle of the crit.


The end result was quite powerful, it gave people the opportunity to actually see the volume of water they use in a day and make them consider it. The idea of bin bags immediately links to the idea of waste so we decided that the concept was clear, but the bags needed labelling with the amounts and the daily routine.. 'brushing teeth' 'washing up' etc. We tried to keep the labelling as simple as possible and using a language that was connected to our material. We had seen bin bags with tick boxes and bold text to identify what was inside so we used that for our labelling.
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