The Arts

September 6, 2021

From recycling, Adeyemi creates art of Waste Panorama

From recycling, Adeyemi creates art of Waste Panorama

By Osa Amadi

Recycling researcher, Festus Iranlade Adeyemi, in his solo art exhibition titled “Waste Panorama”, showing from September 14-24, 2021 at Martin Hall Gallery, Loughborough University, U.K, applies polystyrene’s derivatives such as plastics, serviette-tissue, used receipts, cartons, newspapers, and sacks as what the artist describes as “colours for creative construction.”

Iranlade Adeyemi is on academic sojourn with focus on Recycling Exhibition (a PhD Candidate) at School of Design and Creative Arts, Loughborough University, UK.

“This exhibition explores the challenges of waste management. Waste, as a throwaway or single used article, causes problems in the global environment,” Adeyemi explains in his Artist Statement.

“The control policy assists different nations to control the damaging effect in the environment. However, waste management differs between developed and developing countries, while countries like the United Kingdom handled generated waste effectively, developing nations like Nigeria struggles with trash and ecological regulation.”

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The artist notes that as researchers keep warning against inadequate plastic waste management, the mounting pollution, experts predicted, “will outweigh fish and other animals in the sea by 2050!”

Adeyemi, in his research on creative reusage of plastic waste takes his base in Lagos, Nigeria as case study. “Consequently, creative recycling for waste items especially in the developing landscape of Lagos Nigeria cannot be underrated. This is because it can generate colorants/ink to solve the conventional materials scarcity for creativity, and create employment which encourages recycling, and campaign against careless disposal of waste in the ecosystem.”

Among artworks for the exhibition are “Plastics World 1” (repurposed polystyrene, plastics, serviette papers, used receipts and collage on printed world map space, 138 X 102cm), “Lockdown Couple” (repurposed polystyrene, serviette papers, newspaper cutouts, receipts and general waste on canvas, 80.01Cm X 39.37Cm), “Nok Conversation” (waste from repurposed polystyrene, serviette papers, collage, texts on canvas space, 200 X 50 Cm) as well as “Shapes 1” (repurposed polystyrene, acrylic, Loughborough University maps and images, and collage on canvas space, 40.64 X 30.48cm).

This body of artwork and others for the exhibition that are texturized in recycled materials, according to the artist, basically, is aimed at campaigning against poor management of waste and its devastating effect on the environment. “This raises useful awareness about the gains in the reuse, recycling, and repurposing of waste to explore the items and extracts their hidden benefits.”

Lagos, he recalls, played a part in inspiring the research and the “Waste Panorama” exhibition. The campaign was organized in Lagos where artists, schools, locals, friends, communities, and waste managers were sensitized and nudged (persuaded) using the grounded theory’s field operation potentials to discourage careless discarding of waste in their communities.”

 Among the aims of the exhibition, within artistic context is to open up the alternative materials space, Adeyemi argues. “To justify the need for creative waste recycling especially in Lagos-Nigeria, the research aims to minimize the scarcity of art materials in Lagos by repurposing waste as an alternative colorant for creativity,  encourage a reduction in toxic waste/unwanted materials by inspiring recycling in the Lagos environment using the exhibits constructed from waste items as a campaign tool, and increase public awareness about the dangers of waste and pollution by encouraging recycling through the creation and exhibition of artworks from the waste.”

The objectives of the research and exhibition include “to demonstrate the inherent worth in waste by generating useful pigments in arts’ activities, raise awareness about waste usefulness through the making of sketches, models, installations, experiments, and large-scale drawing assemblage as exhibits to encourage recycling and combat environmental pollution; and inspire attitudes that will transform waste as art materials and instruments of creativity.”

Generally, the artist says: “My Art speak about the environments, ecology, waste recycling, and the plight of the people in the developing landscapes. It seeks to be part of the solutions to the encountered challenges especially in Lagos.”

 Adeyemi is a research candidate in the School of Design and Creative Arts, Loughborough University, UK. He is Chief Lecturer (on Study leave) from the Department of Fine and Applied Arts, Federal College of Education Akoka-Yaba, Lagos. He earned his Master Degree from the Coventry University, UK in 2014.

In 2015, he had a solo research exhibition tagged “Between the Lines”.  The show interrogated transportation challenges in Lagos State and sought to be part of the solution about the traffic gridlocks in the ‘State of Excellence’. He has exhibited arts in several group shows in Nigeria including Coventry University in the UK.

Vanguard News Nigeria

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