Putting out the welcome mosaic

AN enormous eco-conscious artwork, Tomorrow’s Joy, will welcome delegates to the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) at OR Tambo International Airport.

Tomorrow's Joy stands 14 metres tallTomorrow's Joy stands at 14 metres tallMade of coloured bottle tops, the mosaic is a picture of children running through an open field – illustrating hope, celebration, simplicity and joy, according to artist Usha Seejarim, the co-founder of Such Initiative, the eco-art organisation responsible for making the mosaic.

Tomorrow’s Joy was commissioned by the City in 2010 for the Joburg Arts Alive International Festival, and has been chosen by the Department of Arts and Culture to greet international ministers on their way to COP 17.

COP 17 takes place in Durban from 28 November to 9 December, and more than 25 000 delegates from 193 countries are expected to attend. It has the theme, “Working together changing tomorrow today”, seeming to have a synergy with the title of the mosaic, Tomorrow’s Joy.

Delegates at the Conference of the Parties, an annual gathering, are largely drawn from governments, business and academia. Talks focus on finding solutions to global warming. The mosaic will be on display in the space between international and local arrivals at the airport.

Alba Letts, the City’s acting director of arts, culture and heritage, says: “The City is very honoured and proud to be associated with this work. As part of the City of Joburg’s Growth and Development Strategy for 2040, [the department of] community development has undertaken various pledges towards supporting the COP 17 deliverables, including a major focus on recycling. We are also including recycling in our 2011 carnival this year.”

Recycled
Commenting on the artwork, she adds: “For me personally, it brings out a sense of hope: just knowing how many people were positively impacted upon [when] making the piece, and that it shows hope for a future that does not have to always rely solely on newly manufactured goods, but that we can produce items of beauty from recycled materials.”

The Visual Arts Network of South Africa, which is in charge of managing art installations for the national Department of Arts and Culture and other government institutions, has partnered with Pink Room Productions on this installation for ease of management.

A structural engineer will be contracted to design a mechanism to suspend the work from the ceiling in an aluminium frame to avoid the use of scaffolding.

Brenda Devar, the chief executive officer of Pink Room Productions, says: “Tomorrow’s Joy is destined to be seen and remembered by an extensive audience. It is that sort of work.”

She adds: “Its astonishing appeal saw it enjoying prominence at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in 2011. The next progression had to be a global spotlight and this has come to play with COP 17.”

Bottle top
The work is deserving of this distinction. Its ethos is all about “changing perceptions”. Defying the cynics, the lowly, discarded plastic bottle top has become a powerful ambassador of change and possibility, she says.

“The artwork represents the power that lies in the collective. While the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, one would feel the deficiency if one bottle top was missing. There is an alchemy in working with discarded goods – ever-changing and ever-inventive,” she explains.

“There is also a certain creative audacity in using a used plastic bottle top to represent the smallest digital unit – the pixel. The work is brave and profoundly beautiful.”

Arts Alive is the City’s flagship festival. It runs throughout September each year. It showcases everything art, from visual art to music, dance to theatre, and everything in-between. The festival is undertaken by the City’s department of arts, culture and heritage, along with other partnering organisations.

Bottle top mosaic
Approximately 90 000 discarded plastic bottle tops and other lids were woven together with fishing gut, following a colour by number embroidery pattern of 92 400 pixels to create this suspended masterpiece– measuring 7m by 14m. It is 100m2 in size and weighs 246kg.

“Such Initiative wanted to determine academically the shift in thinking and commissioned a social scientist and an environmental art education expert to investigate the lessons learned by the participants,” Seejarim said during the 2010 Joburg Arts Alive International Festival.

It involved the work of eight community centres, 140 children, 30 disabled adults and 31 crafters and took 10 weeks to complete. While creating the mosaic – including the collection, cleaning, sorting and weaving of bottle tops – participants learned about the need for recycling and how to create visually enriching pieces using it.

The artwork was made at the beginning of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ and unveiled on 18 September. It was intended to be used as a vehicle to educate people about recycling and eco consciousness.

Such Initiative is a collaborative effort between Seejarim and Hannelie Coetzee, a visual artist and photographer who combines land art, social documentary photography and collaborative art projects.

Seejarim says: “This interaction with communities and people who both run and benefit from these projects affords Coetzee the opportunity to stay in touch with an ever-changing society. It also inspires her to work with communities and tell their different stories through emotive photo essays.”