I had my initial meeting with the team at Brighouse Recycling Centre yesterday and bought a giant fibreglass yellow pepper for 50p from the on site ‘Revive’ shop at the recycling centre which intercepts items destined for the skips.
The initial meeting covered the basics about dates, access, health and safety and GDPR. I talked about my research to date and my intentions for the residency. We talked about perceptions and value, categorisation systems, materials, processes, the patterns of behaviour. They’ve been really welcoming and have offered me access to the processing facility in Leeds and the offices to view the waste stream documents. The guys there are great – I’m going to love this residency!
Whilst I was there I had a chat with a customer in the Revive charity shop who, like me, had never been before and was astounded at the quality and quantity of stuff there that people had throw away. On my tour round the skips with the team there was a women throwing away two candelabra light fittings that she said she’d bought off ebay as ‘good working condition’ but didn’t work. “Straight int’t’tip they go,” she said.
There was lots of ‘art’ there too. Some readymade sculptures. I think I’ll be taking a loot of photographs of the stuff that exists already as opposed to making new sculptures out of rubbish – maybe both.
