The circle of life

Exhibition explores how we can make do and mend

WITH obsolescence now designed in to everything from cars to phones to clothes , and the all-encompassing tyranny of plastic where other more sustainable materials were once the norm, the necessity of addressing why we live in the way we do is paramount.

Turning around the juggernaut may seem impossible – perhaps the deep time equivalent of the braking distance of an over-loaded container ship – and yet it’s not as far beyond our reach as some might believe.

Addressing what can be done in the creative world is this exhibition from forward-thinking Fife Contemporary on the “circular economy”, the idea that items are designed to be reused, or repaired, shared or easily recycled.

Not so difficult, really, when you think that before plastic, it was the ethos that underpinned most societies’ approach to goods. Here, freelance curator Mella Shaw, herself a ceramic artist, sometime anthropology graduate and former curator at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, takes up the baton and runs with 12 artists and makers, plus Edinburgh’s redoubtable Tool Library, all of whom are making some contribution to new ideas for embedding the circular economy in their work and in life.

Shaw was very concerned that this shouldn’t be a “dry” exhibition about the circular economy per se, but more an acknowledgement that many artists and designers are now looking at resources in a different way.

“Not everyone in the show is fully sustainable, but they are all approaching one of the themes, and there are some really engaging stimulating objects.”

The four themes around which Shaw has grouped her artists, mostly found via an open call from Fife Contemporary, are “Transforming waste to function” – and quite literally, the aim is no waste; “Design for Disassembly” – from repair to recovery of parts to be used in other things; “Powered by Renewable Energy”; and “Sharing and Repairing” – less about personal ownership, and more about renting or sharing items.

“I’ve been trying to make my own practice as sustainable as possible,” says Shaw, “and that’s tough with ceramics, because of the materials we use, and so I need to do something to offset this.” One of the exhibitors in the show, herself a recently graduated ceramicist, is approaching this particular conundrum directly, Shaw says, in her use of materials. Sara Howard, who graduated from Central St Martins in 2020, is the youngest exhibitor. “She has made this body of work called Circular Ceramics, using reclaimed clay and glazes sourced from industrial byproducts such as glass and silica from quarries that would otherwise be headed for landfill. She’s taking slurry that would go down a drain and making food-safe glazes – very subtle in tone, very beautiful. And the wonderful thing is, she’s made her research all opensource, so that others can experiment too.” It’s this aspect that Shaw finds doubly inspiring. “That’s how we’re going to make a real change. We have to start thinking about how we’re going to make this pardigm shift in attitude to what we use.”

Elsewhere, textile artist Deirdre Nelson has embroidered “A Repair Manifesto” – a document proposed by Amsterdam collective Platform 21 – on a T-shirt which she bought on ebay and repaired using skilled needlework,

Artist-curator Mella Shaw showcases the work of contemporary artists, designers and makers which encourage new perspectives on resources, waste and how we live

itself part of the skills she teaches whilst volunteering, regularly, at Glasgow’s Repair Cafe. Design duo Chalk Plaster have made a lampshade by reforming gypsum plasterboard discovered when they had to knock down a wall in their workshop. “And actually, that’s one of the ways in which the Covid hiatus worked for us,” says Shaw. “The exhibition was due to happen in 2021, but lockdown meant it was delayed again, and in the meantime, they’ve explored the process more and created two new lampshades out of different kinds of waste plaster – a pollutant, really – with different colours and qualities.”

Shaw was keen to make sure that the processes involved would be understood by a general audience, so throughout, alongside the usual labels, there are informative texts showing how each artist and designer has created their work. “So, for example, the panel for Draff Studio (set up by Dundee-based, French designer Aymeric Renoud), which makes furniture incorporating a substance made using spent grain from the breweries, combined with sustainable resin, reveals the process of how they do that.”

The work here has been chosen to be varied and visually striking, inspiring as well as ethically pointing in the right direction. “The whole show is meant to be quite optimistic,” says Shaw. “It’s aimed to show that this way of working can give us a viable and profitable future, one that is even better than the current life we live. We just have to do things in a different way.”

REsolve: A Creative Approach to the Circular Economy, Kirkcaldy Galleries, War Memorial Gardens, Kirkaldy, 01592583206, www.fcac. co.uk , Until 8 May, Tue, Wed, Fri 10-5; Thu 10-7; Sat 10-4; Sun 12-4.