UK Artist Spent 38 Days Collecting Trash To Compose Beautiful Memories
“My journey started with a weekend trip in February 2011 to test the water and to get a taste of things to come. I set off from east London in my 1982 VW camper van, which would be my lodgings for the duration of the trip,” writes London based visual artist, Stuart Haygarth in his journal on day one of his journey across the southern coast of England. What followed after was thirty eight days worth of trash collecting from Gravesend to Landsend.
Later this lead to the birth of Strand, commissioned by University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Developed into an installation piece, the artist picked up every manmade object he found across the coast during his journey. After which he photographed the neat compositions he had created by categorising the trash into dynamic colour schemes.
This artwork is not a regular piece that merely echoes the problem of environmental degradation, but it unfolds into an emotional journey that portrays the artist’s struggle with a disease that plagues his life. “The initial concept for the sculpture grew from my thoughts about the potential feelings created from being diagnosed with cancer, the shock and fear and the start of both a physical and mental journey throughout the months of treatment. To create the artwork I decided that I wanted to put myself through a physical and mental journey,” he explains in an interview.
Haygarth explains that memories metamorphoses into great comfort for cancer patients. With this artwork, he hoped to curate memories of people, washed ashore in the form of these man-made objects. He adds, “The colourful explosion which is frozen in time refers to the sudden shock of diagnosis, and hopefully the sculpture creates a sense of calm and order from the chaos of a violent action.”
Subtle, soft and comforting is how we did like to describe the hues created by the artist. He has surely shown how contemporary art shines today because it repurposes regular objects with meaning--giving us novelty through creation.
Images Courtesy of Stuart Haygarth
