AWARD YEAR
2021
CATEGORY
Community
GOALS
Sustainable Cities & Communities
KEYWORDS
RECYCLING AND REUSE, Garbage collection, Plastic pollution
COUNTRY
China
DESIGNED BY
Shitong Zhao/ UAL
WEBSITE
https://graduateshowcase.arts.ac.uk/staged/projects/1189/cover?guid=646876a1-d34a-43b6-aa76-7a6783f57c68
Weaving Plastic Plaid
To challenge people's perceptions of plastic by redefining and reusing the material.
Three significant influences converged to bring me to this project. One is the desire to respond meaningfully to plastic pollution, a possibility to rework with traditional slow handmade techniques, and the last is the use of open source to connect people at this particular time.
My project is initially inspired by a documentary ‘Plastic China’, the process of remanufacturing the recyclable plastics can cause secondary pollution to the environment and serious damage to the workers' bodies.
I researched that plastic bags is one of the most common plastic products. However, the life of the plastic bag is not long, so I used waste plastic as raw material and aimed to challenge the perception of plastic. I collected waste several plastics bags, then divide them according to different colours. Then I disassembled these plastic bags and wove them to create a collection of contemporary fashion plaid pattern fabrics for the fashion industry.