Meet Claire, a Contemporary Artist who joined Leg 7 of our Round the World voyage. In our conversation with Claire, she reflects on bringing awareness to the plastic crisis through her art, and the impact it can have within the teaching curriculum.
Picture credit: Bill Daly
To begin with, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
My name is Claire, I’m Irish and I live and work in Dublin as a visual artist. My work is currently based in sculpture and installation and I’m motivated by conceptual interests which means I tend to work in a variety of media. I also work as a lecturer and a technician at the National College of Art and Design, which is a very interdisciplinary role and gives me a great opportunity to interact with different departments and techniques. It allows my approach to the creative fields to be very broad, which I love… I’m just like an omnivore I guess!
“Experiencing the ocean in that way and witnessing this expansive space, surrounded by nature really settled my soul.”
Why did you join an eXXpedition voyage?
A few years prior to eXXpedition, I had this kind of oceanic awakening. My partner and I did this mad thing where we decided to take a year out and sail across the Atlantic, which was really out of the box for me because I grew up in a landlocked county.
My partner, however, is super interested in boats and I got swept away by his passion and excitement, so it was very much a baptism by fire! The experience itself, though incredibly stressful at times, was mind blowing. Experiencing the ocean in that way and witnessing this expansive space, surrounded by nature really settled my soul. But then you see a fishing net drift past and suddenly this pristine and sacred space changes and the overwhelming issues start to creep into your psyche.
After this experience, I kept coming back to these issues and this concept of human understanding and how the ocean functions for us symbolically, physically and geographically. And then one day, I came across this post on Instagram about the voyage and I just felt that I needed to go. But, this time going in with the purpose of revisiting those issues and questions I had.
What surprised you most during the voyage?
Going back out into the ocean with eXXpedition gave me a real sense of the scale of the issue. It was such a transformational experience that opened up this whole can of worms!
What struck me was how isolated we were. Our leg was a route that wasn’t often travelled by other boats, which further compounded this feeling of remoteness. When using the manta trawl, we would collect samples of fibres and microplastics and we would only collect a few pieces in each trawl, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but once you take a step back you remember you’re in this vast space, it felt so insidious it almost made me feel dizzy. This juxtaposition of this minute piece of plastic, teeny tiny, causing such an enormous problem with serious consequences was really sobering.
“I’m trying to bring the things that I have learnt into my work and teaching, to help people grasp what’s going on and find their place in relation to it.”
What’s your superpower?
I think the way my art and teaching are overlapped, almost feeding into each other, is my superpower. I’m trying to bring the things that I have learnt into my work and teaching, to help people grasp what’s going on and find their place in relation to it. Having that kind of awareness is important, and without the tangible shock of first hand experience it can be very overwhelming to maintain conscious effort on a sustained basis.
There seems to be a growing discourse of our own making, and it’s becoming bigger and bigger. We’re running out of everything. We’re running out of space, running out of clean water and time. So we need to reimagine these issues in a way that will pull us back from the edge.
I feel that my role isn’t necessarily to point towards the data, but to interrogate why it is so hard to understand, and in what way can we integrate it more into our common awareness, without spreading eco-anxiety. I think we need to find ways to be really engaged with the issue and identify with it almost like hardwiring it into yourself.
Picture credit: Carry Somers
What medium do you work in?
I have always struggled to pin down a specific physical medium. I don’t fixate on the material, it’s more about the potential vocabulary it has to communicate. I am very deliberate about what I work with and choose the material based on the context and what it can add. So the medium isn’t the common denominator throughout my practice. Instead, the common thread to my work is my conceptual approach, or way of responding.
Picture credit: Helen Morris
“We have a set amount of time for any object in our possession. It has life before and a life beyond us too. If we can find ways to strongly identify with things in our possession, we’re more likely to take better care of them, and in turn take more interest in how they’re disposed of”
How has plastic pollution influenced your art?
I had this amazing opportunity to create a course for design students in NCAD. I took this idea of ‘where we end the world begins’ as a way to access this problem. The course focused on trying to encourage students to understand materials and develop a sense of responsibility towards them. We have a set amount of time for any object in our possession. It has life before and a life beyond us too. If we can find ways to strongly identify with things in our possession, we’re more likely to take better care of them, and in turn take more interest in how they’re disposed of. If we create that same sense of identification to everything in our possession, whether that’s for a couple of years, or five minutes, then we can begin to identify with the object from its’ origins to its ending.
It’s a form of storytelling, but it’s a new way of trying to tell a story about how you might think about objects and materials and making them something we become more conscious of, like an extension of ourselves in a way.
Picture credit: Winnie Courtene-Jones
“…we need to reimagine these issues in a way that will pull us back from the edge.”
What keeps you hopeful about the ocean’s future?
I think art, and creativity in general. Art is a speculative place for storytelling; it gives us the space to get to the heart of something and the freedom to look at it from all angles. It can point us towards new solutions to the problems that emerge, which is particularly exciting in the discipline of design and the real world impact that can be made. I actually came across this book by Timothy Morton, ‘All Art is Ecological’ where he discusses how “The future emerges directly from the objects we design” (p.62-63). I think this confirms the importance of design in modern society, but also reinforces the responsibility on designers’ shoulders to create the future. It is words like these that remind me not only of art’s importance, but of a reason to remain hopeful about the future of the ocean.
Picture credit: Helen Morris
If you could give one message to the world, what would it be?
To be mindful of the impact that you have. We should become stewards of the objects we encounter, and not underestimate the influence we can have. It can be overwhelming to see the problem of waste management as a whole. However, once you remember the control you have over the types of materials that pass through our lives, you can begin to feel empowered rather than demotivated.
Picture credit: Millie Webb