26.07.24 - 28.07.24
Eastbound
Our group, River East, made work responding to the environment, politics, and history of the River Thames. Disgarded is a site-specific installation made from recycled materials found in the East London Area, an outcome of a local cleanup project I had conducted through the duration of the residency.
Mission
Cleaning up East London
River East was born from a collective desire to engage directly with the overlooked waste and detritus that shaped the environmental landscape of East London. I noticed how garbage pools in the crevices of roads and buildings.
My goal was simple: to clean up, document, and transform found materials into a sculptural installation which could then be recycled.
Through a series of local cleanups and community engagement, we gathered discarded objects, disinfected them and installed them. This project not only confronts the politics of pollution, consumption, and capitalism in London, but also seeks to reclaim agency through care, collaboration, and creative reuse.
Outcome
Human detritus has become an extension of the landscape of London. Discarded presents how the things we throw away find a way to take form and life of their own. When we see rubbish on the side of the road, it is easy to ignore and walk past. When taking the rubbish out into a white cube gallery space, it becomes recontextualised, confronting the viewer with the implications of pollution. I aimed to communicate this through scale, as well as through the branding of the products collected. Around the area was a Costa and a Waitrose, the two brands that featured the most in the final installation.
Another interesting observation I found was the amount of disposable vape products. As I am writing this it is July 2025, and disposable vapes have now been banned in the UK. Vape resellers immediately began selling rechargeable vape products, and I think that there is something about the implications that electronic cigarettes have had on the public health of this nation.
