The learning curve
Plastic shopping bags
60 cm x 40 cm x 56 cm
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Weighing 38 kg, I was psychotic.
I found a community devoted to reintroducing discarded materials into the realm of real objects through a practice that honours the rehabilitative power of reclaiming waste. I’ve come to understand the powerful myth of the Away Place: that objects (and people) cease to exist once discarded.
This rope is neither strong nor practical. It has no use beyond its perpetual process of becoming. The learning never ends and is non-linear; it curves, repeats, falls in on itself, spirals, and shifts shape every time it is picked up to continue the learning.
Over eight meters long, the rope is woven from local plastic shopping bags using a peanut butter jar lid as a loom. I wove this rope while grasping for sanity and exploring the archival process of forgetting.
Here are tales from the Away place:
- The Hennops Revival team is cleaning up a local river.
- Iets’ ene Designs is known for its accessories made from waste products.
- South Africans across the country drag trolleys through our streets to assimilate our recyclables as part of an informal waste management system. To honour their dignity, many households now wash their recyclables with their dishes.
Everything we refuse to assimilate becomes forgotten right before our eyes. I see that South Africans are actively re-assimilating and recreating in order to learn.
I present to you The Learning Curve, a rope that I wove from forgotten objects to meditate on the archival process of deciding what is real and what (if anything) belongs in the Away place.