Future Fossils by Katie Ackril
Future Fossils by Katie Ackrill
Future Fossils
In 1907, Leo Hendrik Baekeland created the first fully synthetic plastic. Dubbed The Material of a Thousand Uses, Bakelite was easily mass-produced into desirable products with accessible consumer price-tags. In the 1930s, the development of Perspex, polyethylene, Nylon, Vinyl and Teflon followed Baekeland’s invention. Post-war manufacturing preferred these cheap and convenient plastics over glass, metal and paper. The “Age of Plastic” was ushered in with enthusiasm, but this change quickly led to a dark legacy for these promising new materials.
In Anya Beaumont’s studio, overflowing bags of containers reveal humanity’s reliance on single-use plastics. Once filled with household cleaning products, toiletries and food produce, the discarded items are piled up in a succession of punchy pinks, fluorescent yellows and brilliant blues. Images from Greenpeace and the National Geographic are called to mind. Children in the Philippines play among piles of plastic, and the UK’s recycling washes up on the shores of Malaysia.
Yet, in the artist’s studio these problematic vessels take on the identity of a creative medium, in the manner of paints in a painter’s studio, or fabrics for an upholsterer. Each bottle or tub has potential to be just the right colour, shape or malleability for the next creation. Once selected, it is carefully cut to shape and manipulated into a completely new form. In Anya’s studio, discarded plastics await a second life.
Anya’s exploration of pre-used plastics as a creative medium began in 2019, with the inclusion of a small sculpture in the exhibition Flourish at Pound Arts. For the first time, Anya’s intricate contemporary- baroque style was transformed through the smooth sheen and block colours of recycled plastic. This new approach was fully realised in 2023 with the completion of The Four, from the ongoing Hopeful Monsters series. Made entirely from pre-used plastics, and referring to the four elements, these sculptures signal to human abuses of the planet. Yet The Four are not here to admonish us. Vibrant
and playful, they roll in on their wheels of discarded kids’ toys, bringing hope for a better future.
The most recent additions to the Hopeful Monsters series move away from a solely environmental narrative. In The Mother, The Promise and The Wish, repurposed domestic furniture and references to vessels suggest anxieties bound up with pregnancy and motherhood. For Anya, feelings of unease are connected with her fear of birds. Feathers are made from recycled shower gel bottles of deep black tones, which reflect light in a manner suggesting the movement of a slick glossy coat. Dark, surreal and bodily, these pieces are imbued with an uncomfortable, psychological presence.
Anya’s ability to make plastic appear to live and breathe is exemplified by the series that inspires the exhibition’s title. The Future Fossils are vibrant symphonies of colour and organic forms, which seemingly pulsate with life. Yet they are contained within bell jars, calling to mind a Victorian vogue for collecting and displaying natural history specimens. This presentation provokes questions about what we choose to conserve, and what is preserved by its very nature. It asks how this “Age of Plastic” will be remembered and looked upon in the future. At the same time, we are reminded that the power to decide has somewhat been forfeited. After all, a key attribute that made plastics so desirable at the beginning of the 20th Century, is the very thing that makes them so problematic today: their durability.
Microplastics are integrated within layers of earth, becoming fossilised and forming a new geological epoch defined by human impact on the earth’s composition. That plastics play a part in the fossils of the future is inevitable. By transforming polymer carcasses into vibrant baroque forms, and presenting them as specimens to be studied, Anya invites us to explore the role of plastics in the narrative of our time, and reveals intersections between environmental ethics, geology and creative practice.
Text by Katie Ackrill, Curator, 2024
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