{ plastic soup } Installation consists of six photographic prints printed on ceramic tiles and handmade book printed on Arjowiggins Creative papers / Installation is part of Irish State Art Collection / Selected entry for RDS Student Art Awards 2012 { http://www.rds.ie/studentart
{ foreward }
Jurga Rakau’s pilgrimage around the Irish coastline gathering images of waste made me think of Andrew Kotting’s film Gallivant from 1996. Not that they are the same at all, Kotting’s film is the story of a little girl with learning difficulties and her elderly great Grandmother following the British coastline in a camping car, and Jurga follows the Irish coastline in her Volkswagen and with her camera, but there is a similar mood. The silvery light of the space between land and sea colours each image, and a slightly obsessive determination to reveal the coastline inch by inch unites the projects. One almost wishes that Jurga had gone to every beach, an impossible project of course, to catalogue each and every piece of junk, much as scientists and wildlife enthusiasts map sightings of dolphins and hump-backed whales off the coast.
Jurga photographs bottles, bits of string, faded coloured straws and torn plastic bags washed up on the shoreline, with the attention to detail and to composition that might be required for the cover of the National Geographic. This strange conjunction of a highly polished photographic technique with a subject matter straight from the dustbin strips the items of their nature…they could be almost alive, strange creatures found in rock pools, until you look closer and see that they are indeed man made; picnic remains, medical waste and what-not, waiting for
you to stub your toe on a sharp needle, or entangle some unsuspecting bird in the plastic rings of a six pack binder.
These chillingly beautiful photographs are a very clear indictment of our practices with regard to waste disposal. Some of this rubbish washes up, thrown overboard from ships and trawlers, or is disposed of by unscrupulous waste processing contractors. But as much if not more of the waste on our beaches is carelessly abandoned by holidaymakers, dog-walkers and day-trippers. One series of photographs examines the extraordinary habit many dog-walkers have of carefully packaging their dog’s excrement in blue bags, then neatly hanging these bags on a fence, like so many Christmas stockings on the fireplace.
As an artist who has used photography and video to highlight environmental questions, I appreciate Jurga’s initiative deeply. Environmental questions will be central to our survival in the 21st century, but the economic crisis has shifted the focus from this crucial question. Through their work artists can help shift that focus back.
Anne Cleary, visual artist
Cleary + Connolly
May 2012
