The Work

Graham Hay
Pending, 2006
Reproduced courtesy of the artist
Photographer: Victor France

Graham Hay

My compressed and carved document sculptures are a reaction to, and a by-product of, information overload. The shape of the compressed paper sculptures is a response to the documents made from them. The compressed pages can no longer be read, ending any debate in which they participated and making silent their words. In this respect not only is the paper sculpted and reused, but the information contained is transformed as well. This work comments upon the way knowledge is packaged and consumed within society.

Graham Hay

 

Glenys Hodgeman
Open heart, Cardiology series, 2006-07
Reproduced courtesy of the artist, Helen Gory Galerie, Melbourne and Felicity Johnston Gallery, Perth

Glenys Hodgeman

My work addresses the ubiquitous activity of gift-giving between individuals and across cultures. I am interested in notions of egoism, altruism and redemption that motivate gift-giving behaviour. Through the selection of an object and the act of giving, we transform objects to objectifications of self, permitting the gift to function as a relationship signifier and endowing it with tangible feelings, judgements and memories.

Gift ribbons and cards, whilst not endowed with the same status as the present, are equally potent as indicators of feelings and emotions. How we present our gift and the way we either cherish or discard the card or wrapping tell much about our thoughts and feelings towards the giver and their relationship to us.

Glenys Hodgeman

Vin Ryan
Table (eleven transactions), 2007
Reproduced courtesy of the artist

Vin Ryan

Andy Warhol reminded us that it is not commodities that we worship, but the printed material that encloses them. The ubiquitous cardboard box is the container of choice for nearly every consumer item we buy from cornflakes to plasma TVs. But it loses its function the moment we reach in and lift out its contents. The cardboard box is transient and impoverished. We collect them whenever we need to move house while the homeless use them as makeshift shelters or to make signs asking for money from those passing by.

This work consists of hand-written notes on remnants of cardboard that I have collected from beggars around the streets of Melbourne. By tearing or cutting cardboard boxes into signs they make simple statements about desire, consumption and basic human needs. Placed together these messages form a series of poetic, fragmented reflections on the way we place value upon the material world around us.

Vin Ryan

Paper

Paper

Paper

The environmental impact

It is claimed that between 10 and 17 trees are needed to produce one tonne of paper.

Paper is one of the most important and widely used consumer materials with approximately 7000 different types, each with a different use. There are 6 main types: newsprint, printing and writing papers, case-making materials, packaging papers and boards, household and toilet tissues, and industrial and special purpose papers.

Australia uses more than 600,000 tonnes of newsprint alone each year of which approximately 70% is manufactured locally. The rest is imported. Up to 40% of the fibre used to make newsprint is from recycled newspapers and magazines.

Australia's continuing consumption of and demand for office paper encourages the clearing of overseas native forests, particularly Indonesian rainforest, which causes soil erosion, stream siltation and biodiversity loss due to poor forestry practices.

Compared to the manufacture of paper from virgin fibres, recycling of paper confers many environmental benefits. Making recycled pulp from newsprint uses only one sixth of the electricity needed to make pulp from virgin mechanical pulp. It can also reduce water use by nearly 60%, energy consumption by 40-60%, air pollution by 74% and water pollution by 35%, depending on transportation distances and methods of deinking (Warmer Bulletin May 1993, November 1994). It is reported that making paper from virgin pulp uses as much as 300 cubic metres of water for every tonne of paper produced where as producing recycled paper only needs a tenth (30 cubic metres (Warmer Bulletin August 1994). Recycling also reduces the dependence on imported paper.

http://www.kesab.asn.au/uploads/Factsheet/Paper-Cardboard