Meet the award winning eco artists and designers who upcycles waste materials into luminous scultpures...
Anna Roebuck
‘Creating desirable objects from everyday waste’ is Anna Roebucks mantra. Her innovative designs are created using techniques she has developed over the last seventeen years, and focus on using recycled materials, in particular, recycled plastic. In 2001, she set up ‘Bags2riches’: creating jewellery, lighting and artwork using recycled plastic bags. Her newest range,‘Out of Line’, has been created using recycled plastic milk bottles.
By transforming waste in to a covetous product or a fun sculpture, Anna hopes to encourage people to consider issues around waste, recycling and sustainability and also challenge people’s concept of value.
Anna is passionate about participatory art and creates many larger scale projects with the help of different members of the community. Some examples include Peacock Passion, created with the help of festival goers at The Larmer Tree Festival, and Fragile Peace, a World War 1 remembrance sculpture created with students at Ormiston Ilkeston Enterprise Academy.
En Route To The Ocean is a collection of sculptures designed to draw attention to environmental issues of waste plastic in a light hearted and accessible way. The first illuminated fish sculptures were created for Nottingham Light Night in 2016 using recycled plastic bags; each year more creatures are added to the collection, with gulls, dragonflies and insects set to feature in 2018 on the canal.
Anna is based at The Making House in Burton on Trent.
Sarah Turner
An elephant made out of plastic bottles, an upcycled dragon and a life size World War I tank; these are all creations within Sarah Turners’ portfolio. An award winning eco designer based in Nottingham Sarah mostly works with plastic bottles and cans, transforming discarded materials into high quality, unique designs.
Sarah has been producing work for Light Night since 2012 including an illuminated family - made from plastic bottles - and a huge chandelier light installation at Nottingham Trent University.
The eco artist has visited 20 primary schools in Nottingham, where each school has made a beautiful illuminated archway from waste plastic they collected. Around 600 children collected plastic bags and bottles and handmade them into flowers and leaves to adorn the arches.
For this year’s Light Night, on 23 February, all 20 archways will be joined together in the centre of St Mary’s church to create a tunnel which you can walk through and admire.
There will also be a free drop in workshop on the night where you will get to help make another arch to add to the installation.
Sarah's work is available to purchase on her website. See En Route To The Ocean and Sarah's school installation at Light Night on Friday 23 February 2018.
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