Societal Detritus re-imagined by Paul Mancrief

The Poplar Union Gallery
Tuesday 30 October – Sunday 3 February 2019
Open Night Friday 2 November 5pm-7.30pm

The images I create comes from my passion and conscience connectedness with materials and their use.

Used materials and used disowned items inform my response to the application of both representation and abstraction within my work, rather than existing separately. Also, I feel the two are linked and come together through the choice of techniques I use and how I render my images.

Recycling and re-use is second nature to me and I am only too eager to spread the re-use and recycling message and its fundamental importance upon today’s modern world.

My images for public consumption are created using a fully manual medium format roll film camera set on a tripod. I use equipment such as this to allow a considered and flexible approach to my work. The images depict items that consumers have discarded into the recycling waste stream via their household ‘green’ bin or box, these items are collected and taken to the local material recycling facility where they are sorted and bailed ready to be shipped and made into new items ready for further consumption.

Philosopher Vilem Flusser’s assertion is that we live in a society of recycling. By this, he means that our lives are punctuated by objects, feelings and ideas that are endlessly retrieved and re-used. He thus aligns commercial waste recycling with psychoanalysis, both activities that aim to rebuild by sifting through and reinstating discarded and forgotten material. (Time and Narrative, Installation in the New Millennium, P133).