laurenballard Environmental Art & Plastic Bag Free SW
'Our Demise?' (detail- Moss carder-bee) (2009)
'Our Demise?' (2009)
Plastic Bag Sheep 2
Plastic Bag Sheep 1
In a field in Devon .. (2007)
Plastic Bag Sheep 3
Plasic Bag Sheep 4
'The Flock' (installation view)
Fish (2008)
Jellyfish (2008), TRAIL08 exhibition view
'The Wave/high-time for a turn of the tide' 2009
Plastic Bag Free poster
House, 12 James St. Oxford (2004)
'Bee View' (2009)
Non nucléaire / No nuclear, TRAIL08 (2008)
Non nucléaire / No nuclear, TRAIL08 (2008)
Non nucléaire / No nuclear, TRAIL08 (2008)
Non nucléaire / No nuclear, TRAIL08 (2008)I make works from second-use, discarded and reclaimed materials.
By working in various formats.. sculpture, photography, mixed-media, and film.. carrying out actions and interventions in public places, I aim to raise questions, and raise awareness. I’m trying to encourage shifts in peoples’ habitual patterns of thought and behaviour, towards conscious day-to-day actions and choices that help to improve/maintain the health of the environment, and that help to prevent run-away climate change.
I carry out workshops and projects, in schools and with community groups. We explore environmental issues on a local and global scale. Drawing on young people’s passions and enthusiasm to make a difference, their message resonates, as the projects are often viewed and experienced by people within their communities, and on a wider scale.
Contact: laurenballard@gmail.com
or visit the Devon Arts In Schools Initiative website
The shock of witnessing a sheep in a field, here in Devon, eating a plastic bag (May 08), lead me to create the first Plastic Bag Sheep. A small flock quickly manifested, as I continued to collect potentially deadly stray bags from the streets, and was donated others by people, who admitted they had a store at home, through sometimes forgetting to take their own reusable bags.
The flock could easily continue to grow as more plastic bags are unnecessarily produced, used, and discarded.
How much longer will plastic bags be strewn on our streets, in trees, along roadside hedges, and spoil this region’s beautiful countryside and coastline?
When they enter the sea, their hazard is unrestricted and they can kill many times. A plastic bag remains in the environment - perhaps forever, it breaks d o w n ssslowwwwly into harmful chemicals that enter the food chain.
The ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS, both as pollution and contributing to climate change, in manufacture, transportation, and as waste, FAR OUTWEIGH
THE CONVENIENCE of the single-use plastic bag.
Worldwide, lots of countries have placed a ban or tax on the plastic bag menace.. so what are we doing in the South West and in the UK?
It is likely, like us, your village/town/city has a plastic bag free initiative, spurred on by the success of towns such as Modbury in Devon, and Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire.
Individually, as businesses and consumers, we can take responsibility by using reusable bags, or methods that negate the use of a bag at all.
Links:
MCS’s up-to-date list of plastic bag free communities:
www.adoptabeach.org.uk/pages/page.php?cust_id=80
Modbury: www.plasticbagfree.com
The shocking and inspiring BBC documentary film: www.messageinthewaves.com
Bumblebees are important pollinators of wildflowers and many of our food-crops.
Threats to bumblebees:
·extensive use of pesticides· intensive farming methods· urbanisation· climate change· the spread of disease and parasitic mites
The UK had 27 species, 3 are nationally extinct:
Bombus pomorum (Apple bumblebee) has not been seen since 1864. Bombus cullumanus (Cullum's bumblebee), last seen in 1941. Bombus subterraneus (Short-haired bumblebee), last recorded in 1996. Many species are now extremely rare.
The UK Biodiversity Action Plan aims to record and protect the biological diversity of all UK habitats, a number are listed as ‘Priority species’ of conservation concern:
Bombus sylvarum (Shrill carder-bee) Bombus distinguendus (Great yellow bumblebee) Bombus ruderatus (Large garden bumblebee) Bombus humilis (Brown banded carder-bee) Bombus muscorum (Moss carder-bee) Bombus ruderarius (Red-shanked carder-bee)
How to help
>by planting wildflowers and traditional cottage-garden plants
>leaving a patch of long grass in our garden so that bees can shelter from downpours
>by providing suitable places for bumblebees to nest
>supporting the work of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust
My Location
My Events
Make your own sheep! Workshop @ Otterton Mill / Sun 11 Apr 2010
This Easter is your chance to make your own sheep at Otterton Mill!... Plastic Bag Sheep are featuring in 'Going Green' - a free exhibition at the Mill, along with more of my work and stunning stuff by 3 other westcount...