these things might kill me (or you too)

Everything's messed up, the planet's dying and the EPA's dead but maybe we can fix it so I'm trying to make some curative work. I think of it as reparative re-materialization.

I've been photographing trash in different parts of the world, using the images to create elaborate symmetrical patterns embedded in otherwise rowdy compositions. I've also made some decorative bunting. There's bling in all of the work: gold mylar for the bunting and images of complex colored beads and sequined fabric beneath the trash pics. I want to make something instructive and uplifting; a sort of ribald didacticism because I don't believe in outright preaching.

The beads and the shiny stuff remind me of the luminescence of stained glass and I'm after a sort of spiritual uplift and space for reflection with the pieces. I want to transform the bad back into good. The bunting has text on it: names of dangerous chemicals used in the production of the trash pictured as well as an excerpt from the Paris Agreement, so there's selective humor too. I like to complicate things.

This is still very much a work in progress. It draws on my interest in material culture and the sad ubiquity of anthropogenic climate disruption. Consumer waste is pervasive and destructive, be it in the form of plastic straws or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.