Suffocation of Avarice

The Suffocation of Avarice examines the Anthropocene through the everyday, a simple moment in time, a dinner table set for a meal. This work asks us to consider the consequences of consumerism and how the impact of plastic has invaded our lives and yet can remain inconspicuous.

Martini glasses reflect the celebration of the 1950s, where our inventiveness surrounding plastic for the everyday consumer had little comprehension of the cumulative effect it would have globally over the next 70 years.

Hidden under the table lay ceramics, representing threatened species of corals covered with the names of plastic items that leach toxic chemicals into the oceans and blanket their world. As the sound of melting and dripping water fills the space, the damp smell of the chamber and sandstone walls work together to remind us of our Utopian ideal. Whilst this artwork suggests abundance. The image of water flowing back up the plastic gives the viewer a true sense of our impact; our oceans and coastal areas, which continue to be catastrophic, altered forever by our selective environmental blindness and current political inaction.

In smothering this everyday scene in builders’ plastic, the suffocation of the invisible becomes more tangible. This plastic comments on the human obsession with land transformation and building; driven by desire and greed, we are ultimately proud of our ability to transform locations into something more ‘habitable’; the builder’s plastic, a nemesis to this act of destructive transformation.