Trash Talk: Conversations with Maritime artists using discarded & reclaimed materials
Do you even notice it anymore when you walk down the street or along the shores of Epekwitk/PEI? Or has trash become so omnipresent that you’ve accepted it as one of the inescapable consequences of the so-called Anthropocene?
Trash may be overlooked on streets and beaches, but it was very much apparent in several artworks in the currents that carry us , a fall 2023 exhibition at Confederation Centre Art Gallery. The theme of the show, curated by Tkaronto (Toronto)-based Roxanne Fernandes, was the place-specific stories told by contemporary artmakers in the Atlantic region. Three artists created a subtext through the use of discarded materials: Jordan Beaulieu, Somnia Lucent, and Carley Mullally.
This winter, I was reminded through social media of another local artist using discarded materials: Jane Whitten, whose work is featured in Of Growing Concern: 40 Years of Textile Creation Amid the Havoc of Climate Change, a retrospective at Eptek Centre (Summerside) from March 3 till April 5, 2024.
I wanted to know why these artists use discarded, upcycled, reclaimed materials. So in January 2024, I talked trash with Beaulieu, Mullally, and Whitten (Lucent was also interested in chatting but was too busy with university courses). Emerging from these conversations were common threads about materials, process, aesthetics, and ethics.
1. Carley Mullally
Image shows in background: Irrational Repair (2020-Present), Found bait bags, nylon thread; and in foreground: 100 Years (2020), Found lobster claw bands, baling twine, rope
Though now based in a part of Mi’kma’ki on the South Shore of Nova Scotia (NS), Mullally has family ties to eastern Epekwitk/PEI. Among various materials, they use beachcombed ghost gear, including rubber lobster-claw bands and bait bags, to merge/queer the “feminine” traditions of weaving and knitting with the “masculine” traditions of fishing and net-making. The CCAG exhibition featured three pieces: 100 Years (2020), made of green and yellow “reclaimed” lobster-claw bands woven with baling twine in a checkerboard pattern to resemble a crocheted granny blanket, was draped over a wooden rocking chair. On the wall hung Bit by Bit (2023), with yellow lobster-claw bands creating an ombre design through the modulating hues of the weather-exposed, degrading rubber. Four pieces from the series Irrational Repair (2021–present) were comprised of reclaimed bait bags and nylon twine; Mullally “fixed” the torn bags with different sewing, weaving, or knitting techniques—including cable stitch, evoking the traditional handmade sweaters worn by fishers.
Why trash/discarded/reclaimed materials?
During the pandemic, Mullally began collecting ghost gear—mainly lobster-claw bands—partly due to the difficulty of accessing other materials, but also because they were plentiful. Visiting her parents in Merigomish, NS, she found the bands on the beaches of Big Island. “I wondered why thousands were washing up right here,” they say. “Then I noticed the beach was between two lobster processing plants—they were flushing the bands out with wastewater.” (Now, they say, the plants have filters to stop the bands from going into the Strait.)
Mullally also sources rubber bands through community organizations that collect them, including Scotian Shores and the Lobster Bandits, a birdwatching group in Unamaki/Cape Breton. So far, she estimates she’s used 40,000 bands, with another 40,000 on hand in 65-liter tote bins.
Bit By Bit (2023), Found lobster claw bands, cotton rope.
Process & aesthetics
Before using the bands in a piece, Mullally cleans them with dish soap, taking care with older, more brittle ones. But evidence of their decomposition is integral: “It’s important that viewers know where they came from before I used them.”
Then the creative work begins: “I spend as much if not more time planning the pieces than making them, which involves a lot of math—something I’m used to from my background in textiles. I sort the bands according to colour and the amount of degradation. Then I make a mini-grid of where they’ll go, and then a full-scale grid.”
They acknowledge that at first glance, some pieces “could be considered down-home folk art. I appreciate that, but I want my work to fit into a different niche. Transformation is a key element, not an aesthetic that appeals to tourists. Reusing is important, but I want to go farther—to reinvent and reimagine the materials.”
Intentions & Ethics
Transforming materials is central, but so is transforming mindsets: Mullally sees their work as engaging in “activism through creating awareness. But I’m always careful about how my activism takes form—I don’t want to make people angry.” When an early ghost-gear piece was exhibited, “a fisher said something like, ‘You must hate me for using these things.’ And I said, ‘No—this waste isn’t your fault, it’s the systems.’ I want to generate conversations, not point fingers of blame.”
“In a perfect world,” they continue, “we’d still make nets by hand and ghost gear wouldn’t exist. Because fishing gear is now mass produced, it’s less valuable. If we were living 100 years ago, would we discard things so easily? No—we’d see the value of a net, that it’s difficult to replace because it’s time-consuming to make. So we’d take more care and repair it.”
She adds: “Can we use different materials or different forms so fewer materials are used? It often comes down to money, and a lack of willingness to be accountable on the part of industry and government. But I love that the pieces can generate these discussions.”
2. Jordan Beaulieu
Detail of Riverside Gathering (2023), Mixed media in shadow-box panels
Beaulieu, who grew up in Kings County, Epekwitk/PEI, near the Mente'ken/Montague River, exhibited a 2023 mixed-media piece titled River Gathering—a triptych of display cases that reference curiosity cabinets, archives, and storefronts. Inside the shadow boxes were disparate discarded items—20th-century potsherds; a ceramic deer with cartoony eyes; vintage, amber-coloured glass medicine bottles; a miniature plastic duck—alongside handmade objects and drawings. Dozens more potsherds were inside vinyl slide sleeves. During a presentation at CCAG, Beaulieu said the sleeves can be understood as mini-narratives, each pocket akin to a comic panel. Beside the piece, a plaque offers several poetic statements revealing the artist’s relationship to the numbered objects and where they were found. As a whole, the piece alludes to the preservation of material cultural objects meant to speak to what a culture deems valuable, belying the notion of “trash.”
Why trash/discarded/reclaimed materials?
Like Mullally, Beaulieu uses trash partly because it’s plentiful and accessible. The house where Beaulieu grew up is near a secluded spot along the Mente'ken/Montague River where people began using as a 20th century midden. River Gathering is the first time they’ve used trash in their art practice, but they’ve always collected found objects and “curiosities.”
Process & aesthetics
Riverside Gathering features objects Beaulieu found along the riverbank: “Mostly ceramic and glass—anything that sparked my curiosity, but especially things of the home. Why would someone take this cup out of their cupboard, drive to the river, and throw it away? It’s still useful, so it’s strange to find it there.”
They add: “I chose things that were visually striking and useful for story-telling: what could these objects say about the people who lived there, including me and my family? They’re conduits invoking memories, telling a piece of that story.”
As well, they aimed to incorporate elements of their zine and comics work in this 3D piece (Beaulieu is also co-founder of the Charlottetown Zine Fest. They use the term “comics poetry” to describe their aesthetic: “I really like comics with a lot of negative space, and stories that are slow moving and fragmented. I’ve always taken a scrappy DIY approach—that punkness is evident in my zine-making, and I want to keep that in more formal contexts.”
Detail of Riverside Gathering (2023), Mixed media in shadow-box panels
Intentions & Ethics
Beaulieu say their work “doesn’t have the good-intentioned-ness” of artists like Somnia Lucent. “I’m not trying to make the beach less polluted—I’m just archaeologically curious about the recent past.”
During their presentation, they mentioned feeling empathy for people who dump trash by the river. They explain: “I can’t criticize them when my own day-to-day actions are often wasteful. Only 9% of plastic is actually recycled. And I’m finding interest and value in the old trash now, so I think that’s a more useful reaction.”
Then they meander along a metaphysical river: “Objects and materials live in hypertime, but humans live in an in-the-moment timescale. Littering is an in-the-moment action, and because humans have short life spans, it’s hard to see the long-term impacts. Most objects, materials, and land have longer experiences of time—plastic breaks down slowly. Humans struggle to see beyond our own perspective of time as scarce, to understand perspectives where time is abundant and things will last.”
“But some people are better at understanding time as being longer, like Indigenous communities—with seven-generations planning, they’re thinking about the long term,” Beaulieu adds. “But [white/settler] culture has a hard time doing that.”
They mention Timothy Morton, a contemporary philosopher in object-oriented ontology, of which a central idea is a critique of anthropocentrism. Morton’s concept of “hyperobjects” involves precisely what Beaulieu describes—entities whose scale is so vast in time or space (or both) that humans can’t comprehend them, such as plastic pollution.
And while Beaulieu doesn’t see themself as an activist, they connect the trash problem to inadequate policy-making: “We need to recognize we can’t pollute waterways. But that goes beyond what individuals can do. Government isn’t regulating industries the way it should—and that’s a global issue.”
3. Jane Whitten
Untitled (randomly woven black strapping with cord on handle) / w18cm x h45cm x d15cm / c.2006 / Photo credit: Rosevear Photography
Whitten, based near Summerside and originally from Australia, has exhibited in numerous venues across Epekwitk/PEI and elsewhere, including at Eptek Centre, the REFRESH exhibition at the Summerside Arts Festival, Confederation Centre Art Gallery, and the Laurie Swim Gallery in Lunenburg, NS. Whitten has made several series of baskets from used plastic bags, wrappers, and other discarded or reclaimed materials, and has sewn quilts from colourful, resealable plastic bags; some of her baskets are in the Canada Council for the Arts’ Art Bank collection. She’s currently working on a series of realistic mussel shell-shaped pieces made from excess plastic chicken-pot-pie wrappers used by a local business.
Why trash/discarded/reclaimed materials?
“I’ve been playing with discarded materials since the mid-1990s, when I started feeling guilty about not recycling,” she explains. “And you can source them everywhere! Consumed, in the Art Bank collection, was made from packaging I collected monthly at home, things that would’ve gone into the garbage or recycling.” She adds that she chose specific materials “because they were flexible enough to manipulate.”
Aside from bags and wrappers, she’s used various types of plastic strapping; telephone wires; underwire from bras; and prongs from street sweepers. The quilts are made from resealable plastic bags stuffed with other plastic bags “to give them that quilted look and feel.”
Consumed (coiled discarded wrappers from my household for each month of 2021 [in order of discarding], wire, linen thread) / 12 cylinders dia 10.5cm and ranging in height from 21cm to 28cm / completed 2022 / in the collection of the Canada Council Art Bank (purchased 2023) / Photo credit: Jane Whitten
Process & aesthetics
Whitten also uses materials she finds while “gutter-combing,” the urban equivalent of the shoreline (or riverside) hunt for trash/treasures. And she keeps these discarded materials—sometimes for decades. “When I left Nova Scotia in 2002 to return to Australia, I had a collection of mostly bright metallic bags of a certain brand of crackers. I wasn’t ready to discard it, so I sent it in a shipping container. Then they stayed in my house for 13 years, and then I brought them back to Canada in a shipping container.”
Whitten started making art to escape the language-heavy aspects of her day job (she assessed assistive technology needs for people with learning challenges), seeking a playful experience with materials. “I don’t sketch before I start,” she says. “Sometimes I have an idea, but usually I just play around, making decisions as I go when the materials don’t cooperate.”
Constellation (crocheted single-use plastic bags, telephone wire) / w210cm x h92 cm x d8cm / 2017 / Photo credit: Hillary Dionne
Intentions & Ethics
Whether making art with discarded materials is a form of activism prompts a complex discussion. She says, “I do feel a responsibility to manage the opportunity, to say, ‘Yeah, look at this, maybe avoid buying things packaged in these materials.’” Then she says, “But what I’m doing doesn’t really change the problem.” (Those cracker bags? She notes they “absolutely did not change” on their decades-long intercontinental journey.)
Like Mullally, however, she asserts the works’ ability to “increase awareness. So I try to draw people in with attractive pieces—so they’ll think, ‘oh, what’s this, what’s it made of?’ and get closer, learn about the materials, and start thinking about the issues.”
She also calls for better policy: “I think the single-use plastic ban helps. We could ban more items—but with things like straws, it’s tricky because it marginalizes people with disabilities. So the government needs to look at the big picture and create balance.”
A new story about trash?
While most of us may take trash for granted, Beaulieu’s, Mullally’s, and Whitten’s works have the potential to urge us to reconsider the larger context. In making compelling “trashworks,” these artists can help us think in a manageable scale—reducing trash from the incalculable realm of Morton’s hyperobject to “relationships that matter within a situated context,” as Max Liboiron and Josh Lepawsky write in Discard Studies: Wasting, Systems, and Power (150, emphasis the authors’). Through small-scale activism, artists using trash may encourage us to better understand the systemic “relationships and forces … that cause discarding” (150).
While trashworks may create awareness and prompt conversations—arguably the first steps in activism—artists aren’t responsible for solving the trash problem. So when we look at their works, we should let ourselves be guided to think upstream, about flawed policies and the underlying assumption that land and waters are acceptable repositories for the toxic by-products of consumption—another facet of settler colonialism, as Liboiron discusses in their first book, Pollution Is Colonialism.
These artworks have the potential to defamiliarize trash, “interrupting popular … and common narratives about waste and wasting” (Liboiron & Lepawksy 149). Their works denaturalize trash, showing us that “waste practices are specific to a time, place, culture, and system, rather than an inherent ‘natural’ characteristic of humans” (149).
And in that is the potential for a new story about trash on Epekwitk/PEI—one that all of us could create together, along with serious commitment from governments.
