What’s the point?

AHorsham artist hopes a ‘monster sculpture made from rubbish’ will spark important conversations about recycling and reducing the city’s landfill.

Nichola Clarke has unveiled her ‘The Point’ sculpture in Bunnings Horsham’s car park, where it will remain until October.

Horsham’s Art is… festival committee commissioned Ms Clarke to make a sculpture built from old toys and household hard rubbish.

“Is it art, or is it trash? Or is it both?” she asked.

“Plastic bags, bubble wrap, packing tape, polystyrene foam, plates, plastic drink containers, furniture fabric, black plastic garbage bags, Mcdonald’s wrappers, toys, shoes, handbags, food containers, packaging… you name it, it all goes into landfill if we don’t consciously recycle it.

“The point of this sculpture is to make people realise how much of our stuff ends up in landfill. That’s why it’s called The Point. It is to engage public discussion and to get people to ask themselves, ‘what can we do about landfill?’.”

Ms Clarke said she hoped her project would also enlighten the community about issues opportunity shops faced when presented with goods they were unable to sell.

“The poor ladies have to sort through everyone’s stuff and there ends up being a lot they can’t use, which then has to go to the tip. And the shops have to pay for it, when they are supposed to be raising money to help others,” she said.

“Our intentions when donating are good, but the magnitude of toys, clothing, shoes, furniture and household objects dropped off each week is overwhelming. Toys that are broken, masticated or have missing parts cannot be sold and end up in landfill.

“A lot of plastic toys end up going to landfill because they can’t be recycled, because they have little bits of metal. I’d like to see an organisation such as Axis Worx get involved to get around this loophole.

“It’s about becoming more aware and asking ourselves what we as a community can do to help.”

Ms Clarke said she was pleased to learn Horsham’s Coles and Woolworths supermarkets would phase out plastic bags. “It’s a great start,” she said. “We all need to work together as a city to reduce the impact on the environment.

“I think Horsham can be a leader in this space and come up with a structure other communities can tap into.”

Ms Clarke encouraged people to learn more about what they could and could not recycle.

“Making this sculpture has given me a better understanding about landfill and our city’s issues with recycling,” she said.

“Hopefully its immense size will engage an audience and its playfulness of using everyday items will spark discussion.”

Ms Clarke said she would run several workshops about The Point with community groups.