In 1998, I produced ‘Once, again’, a room-sized installation made entirely from collected cable ties and plastic bottle sealing rings pinned into complex arrangements on a softboard base. I was young, this was my first proper outing as a professional artist and the show is not well documented. But it was a good example of the approach I’d been honing in the few years previous. The materials were almost all collected and salvaged from streets and homes, the work was labour-intensive and physically demanding. The materials – discarded, single-use plastics – had been very much part of my oeuvre since I was a student, and my growing concern with humans’ impact on the planet was well-here.

It was also the first time I produced something which was installation-based and not really sellable. That hadn’t been working out too well! Later I took it allapart and made my next show ‘Scale’ entirely from these materials.

Read a review by Tracy Murinik here.

Photo by Dave Southwood

Once, again, cable ties, pins, softboard