EARTH ISLAND JOURNAL • SPRING 2020 31Upcycled Art
Aurora Robson’s sculptures are eye-catching,
to put it mildly. Their clean lines, bright
colors, and unique shapes spark joy. And
though not obvious at first glance, they are
also made entirely out of plastic that’s been
intercepted from the waste stream. That’s a
big part of the point.
“A lot of creative industries in cities all over
the world create, just for our entertainment
as a species, an incredible amount of waste,”
says Robson, who knew she wanted to be
an artist from a young age. “I didn’t want to
make more stuff, or use more resources or
fossil fuels, to express my creative ideas.”
Emboldened by well-known artists who
were making their own unique choices in
the 1990s — like Tom Friedman, who was
sculpting with toothpaste, pencils, and pasta
— Robson turned to plastic waste as a
material that would allow her to create while
easing her guilt about creating more waste.
Artistically, the decision to use plastic
wasn’t really a compromise. Its virtually infi-
nite shelf life, or as Robson says, its “archival
quality,” is unquestionably “terrible for the
planet.” But that same quality also makes it
“fantastic for art.”
She also hoped that by working in the
space between the two truths — by showing
that a troublesome product can also become
something beautiful — she’d be able to
highlight the problem with plastics in a way
that was still “art first.”
Robson’s sculptures certainly manage to
get that message across. Using anything from
detergent bottles to industrial laundry barrels
to highway safety drums — all lovingly
cleaned, and transformed into raw materials
— she creates giant sculptures like Kuleana,
a stark-white work that seems to grow from
the Earth, and Ding Dang, a mesmerizing
installation currently on display at Goucher
College in Baltimore, and smaller, playful
sculptures like Synesthesia and Hotrodicus
which manage to remain lighthearted despite
the heavy message their materials convey.
Over the course of Robson’s career, plastic
has only become more ubiquitous. Confronting
all this waste can be taxing. Which is part
of why, in 2009, Robson formed Project
Vortex, a collective of artists, designers, and
architects working with plastic debris, or as
she describes it, “a support network for other
artists” tackling plastic pollution.Robson also finds some peace in the
process of collecting plastic materials from
others, easing the burden of their waste, and
keeping some small amount of plastic out of
our landfills.
“Most people are living in the tyranny of
the moment,” she says. “They don’t have
the time or the money to have a zero-waste
lifestyle ... I love the idea of helping facilitate
that in my own little way, in my own practice,
as much as I can.”— ZOE LOFTUS-FARRENLearn more about Aurora Robson’s work at
http://www.aurorarobson.comQuality of Mercy, Plastic debris, tinted polycrylic, solar powered fiber-optics, stainless steel aircraft cableMore Online: See a slideshow of the
artist’s work at earthislandjournal.org