“ Over the summer of 2018, #OneLess tasked a group of designers and innovators with imagining how London can become free of plastic bottled water and embrace refilling instead. The creatives worked alongside innovation and plastic experts, responding to a set of challenges put forward by venues, retailers, events and places in London, which are struggling to go plastic-bottled water free.”
Oneless
from onelessbottle.org
from onelessbottle.org
A Transparent Revolution is an awareness campaign and exhibition designed during the Design Fellowship at #OneLess, an initiative led by Forum for the Future that aims to make London become free of plastic bottled water and embrace refilling instead. The project was also envisioned in response to the Brompton Design District’s theme Material Consequences, curated by Jane Withers in occasion of the London Design Festival 2018.
Through objects, posters and graphics we wanted to create powerful stories to provoke a conversation over the benefits of drinking tap water and a debate around the production and the disposal of single-use plastic bottles. Overall, A Transparent Revolution aims to make the audience aware that, starting from their personal actions and choices, a future where plastic is not our greatest fear is possible.
A Transparent Revolution
This was a group project made in team with Ambra Dentella and Heleen Sintobin designed for #Oneless fellowship 2018.
Walking around the shores of the Thames, me and my teammates realised how much plastic ends up in nature rather than in the proper facilities to then be recycled. It is fascinating, and at the same time terrifying, how nature can adapt to incoming situations, and engulf polymers in its own body. We wanted to trigger a conversation materialising a future where people will just have access to resources contaminated by plastic.
What future are we aiming for?
Nowdays, every action of ours is visible and public, every personal statement declared and under everyone‘s eyes, however we rarely relate these to the consequences, as the cause.
Not seeing and not experiencing the many steps involved in the production, dispatch, collection and recycling of single use plastic bottles, inevitably builds a wall of detachment and a dehumanising barrier from all these man-made processes.
Transparent water, transparent plastic, invisible processes > inconsistent intangible consequences.
Not seeing and not experiencing the many steps involved in the production, dispatch, collection and recycling of single use plastic bottles, inevitably builds a wall of detachment and a dehumanising barrier from all these man-made processes.
During London Design Festival 2018, our team exhibited for the #oneless fellowship an array of small artefacts related to water, which focus the attention on the human factor from the perspective of an individual consumer.
These representations tell stories that might reduce the distance between the true reality and what we perceive of it, through little interactions let the audience reflect over the issue of plastic consumption. Rebuild already existing cultural narratives inspired by rituals related to water from a multicultural perspective.
Everyone has to recognise and acknowledge the importance of personal social impact and responsibility so that together we can take care of the place where we live through ethical choices. An insensitive action towards the environment, is also a crime against ourselves.
Transparent ethics, transparent behaviours --> visible chance.
These representations tell stories that might reduce the distance between the true reality and what we perceive of it, through little interactions let the audience reflect over the issue of plastic consumption. Rebuild already existing cultural narratives inspired by rituals related to water from a multicultural perspective.
Everyone has to recognise and acknowledge the importance of personal social impact and responsibility so that together we can take care of the place where we live through ethical choices. An insensitive action towards the environment, is also a crime against ourselves.
Transparent ethics, transparent behaviours --> visible chance.
What you buy |What you actually drink
There is a considerable difference between what you buy: a single use plastic bottle of water, and what you actuall want: to drink water.
When you buy a bottle of water of one litre, you are not only buying that litre, but also 162 grams of oil and 7 more litres of water used just for manufacturing the bottle. Moreover, if the bottled water is imported, it generates 300 times more CO2 emissions per litre than tap water.
There is a considerable difference between what you buy: a single use plastic bottle of water, and what you actuall want: to drink water.
When you buy a bottle of water of one litre, you are not only buying that litre, but also 162 grams of oil and 7 more litres of water used just for manufacturing the bottle. Moreover, if the bottled water is imported, it generates 300 times more CO2 emissions per litre than tap water.
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Some History
I was born in Sicily, very close to the seaside and an ancient Greek acropolis. When I was younger, I spent every summer day looking for shells on the beach with my sister and I remember my uncle telling stories of greek jewels found in the streets near to the temple.
Whenever Ambra took a trip to a seaside town as a child, she collected shells and stones, each place and each stone part of the same memory.
At the Belgian beach Heleen collected shells which she traded for paper flowers from other children. The rare exotic shells used to have the highest value.
During our trip on the Thames, while we were collecting plastic waste from the shores for our project, a father was desperately looking for shells to show to his little girl. Hopeful, he asked us if we had found any along our way... we like to think that they eventually did.
We want to imagine a future where every child and their parents could easily find shells and many other wonders from the sea on its shores, like we had the fortune to experience when we were young.
_ Photos taken by me on the Sicilian beaches of Macari. Organic and plastic fossils.
