I was in the 'targeting excess' group and wanted to focus my project on waste in one way or another. I ended up originally thinking about excess of consumerism in general, then further narrowed the topic to the excessive use and waste of plastic bottles.
I realized I could either try and create a unique solution to this worldwide problem, or work on creating awareness. I decided to go with the latter, because what good is a solution if people don't know what the problem is in the first place.
I knew I wanted to make some sort of visual work that could be on display somewhere on campus, where students could walk by and interact with the work, and be reminded of it every day. I ended up deciding to make a sculpture out of plastic bottles.
I thought the project would have more meaning for me and the viewer if the bottles were collected from campus bins. So I went around one day and collected two 30-gallon trash bags full of plastic bottles, mostly from in and around Lawrence hall. My initial thought was to make a large sculpture out of these bottles, possibly in the form of a water bottle, and place it somewhere on campus. But with this idea came a multitude of installation approval problems. So I with some help from my group members, I decided to bring the project indoors. More precisely, to the water fountains in Lawrence. I was going to build a large arch of bottles over and around the drinking fountain.
From there my project evolved into its final form, "The Refill Project". I wanted the focus to not only be on getting people to realize how many of these bottles are wasted every day, but to offer a small solution as well. I wanted to let people know how smart and easy it is to refill your used bottles at drinking fountains instead of tossing and re-buying bottles. At this point I decided I needed to incorporate some sort of written out explanation to accompany the sculpture. This is where I decided to make room for a little computer-based design. I drafted three 'campaign' style posters for "The Refill Project" to go on the wall with the sculpture. The layout of these was simple, and talked about the project, as well as gave a few facts about plastic bottle waste.
But then I encountered even more install issues. To put a sculpture anywhere in Lawrence takes 2 weeks to have the paperwork approved by the dean. At this point I had all my bottles and the posters done, but with only 1 week until the critique I needed a backup plan. I then decided to make the sculpture more portable than original. Instead of an arch, which would have to be assembled on site (and would probably be noticed after a while) I changed to making letters out of bottles that would spell the word "REFILL". Since I had so many bottles, I expanded my project to include 2 water fountains in Lawrence: one behind the pillar past LA 177 and the other down the hall just before the facilities service desk. This way I could assemble most of the work at home and bring it in the day of, document it, and hope that it would be left alone by the deans office long enough to last through the critique.
So everything went as planned from then on out. I had only one minor change in my assembly. I had to use duct tape instead of super glue, as the glue was not cooperating. I was worried at first about the aesthetics of tape on the outside, but I think it works with the feel of the project.
So the day of the critique I brought my constructed letters to Lawrence and laid them out in front of the two fountains, placing a poster above each one. They did last through the critique but, as expected, the install near the facility service desk was pushed off against the wall by the time class was out, and the poster was nowhere to be seen. I will have to see if the other install remains at all tomorrow.
Overall, I would say this project was a success. I accomplished what I set out to do: raise awareness with students about the excessive waste of plastic bottles in an interesting way. I only wish that I had gotten the installation forms to go through ahead of time so that I could actually see The Refill Project in action, and see if it made people change their habits at all, even once. At least I have the pictures to prove it was there once.
-Joe.
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