BY ALEX CHILDS AND SOPHIE DAHM (COLOURFUL COLLECTIVE), WITH INTRODUCTION AND POEM BY ROSE DE LA MONTAÑA (GUITAR)
d e b r i s is on its way
plastic havoc, we will pay
toothbrushwrappersbagstakeawaycontainerstrawsglitter
on its way to us, coming in with the tides
millions.of.particles.conglomerating.spectacularly
a plastic waste tide
….or a tidal D E B R I S ……
Plastic soundscapes, spoken word poetry, the elderly recalling the bygone pre-plastic era, ironed plastic costumes, overstuffed plastic fish.
D E B R I S juxtaposes serene scenes of nature with the compelling reality that we humans are destroying our habitat.
This cross-disciplinary project is presented by Colourful Collective, an independent start-up whose core members Alex Childs and Sophie Dahm have worked tirelessly to innovate and produce.
With thanks to Susan de Weger and MCM IgniteLab who allowed us to participate in the Chamber Challenge in February 2018, where we received valuable advice in the early bird stages of this project. Thanks to the Dean of MCM and VCA, we were granted a spontaneous $500 that helped us get this project off the ground.
– Rose
Colourful Collective began in the form of a music group we conduct with asylum seekers out in Dandenong. We wanted to be able to provide meaningful employment to asylum seekers and other marginalised community members, and that’s ultimately why we decided to form a social enterprise.
Of course, the enterprise had to be ethical and meaningful to us, which is why we decided to work with post-consumer plastic waste, utilising our artistic skills and design mind-sets.
The ‘Colourful’ part of our collective came from a member of our music group in Dandenong. It symbolises happiness, diversity, uniqueness, acceptance and unity.
Art and music are disciplines that we have dedicated most of our lives to; hence why we started the music group in Dandenong, and why Colourful Collective has such a strong focus on the creative arts. We see the arts as a meaningful and positive tool to transmit social and environmental messages because it attracts a wide audience, and allows for a more complex depiction in a more understandable format, music, film, image, sound, objects.
Art is therapeutic, and the issues that we are examining need healing. On a psychological level as much as a real physical level, we feel people need to reconcile themselves with the idea that we have created many problems for ourselves, and so we need to fix these problems.
It’s about confronting this crisis
Our upcoming project D E B R I S is all about creating a dialogue around plastic that goes to landfill, which we all come across on a day-to-day basis. It’s about confronting this crisis and about finding small yet important take-home actions. The issue is presented through an array of artistic mediums which aim to incite a connected and pensive reflection from the audience.
Some of our milestones include our promo film, getting things up on our website (freshly launched!), and people’s interest and feedback around the project – starting the interviews with people who have seen a world when there was no plastic at all! That has been really encouraging and enlightening for us.
But it’s been a challenge, too, navigating the social enterprise/start-up arena as complete business newbies; funding the project and all our wild ideas; prioritising our passions and dreams which we have for this project and Colourful Collective in general.
Our dream is to draw greater attention and solidarity to the tidal wave of plastic waste we have and continue to create. We want to bring the issue to foreground, and garner attention from the media and local governments. We want to inspire people to change or consider their habits, and perhaps adopt some of ideas we promote in the performance.
The debut of DEBRIS aims to test the waters and receive feedback from the audience. If it’s effective, we’d like to do more shows and similar projects.
Believe in what you are doing
We’ve learnt a lot on the way that we can share with other independent creatives: be transparent, be ready to listen, believe in yourself, and believe in what you are doing. Give as much as you can, fill a need – not a niche. Do nice things for people and, somehow, the nice things will return to you and make you feel warm and fuzzy.
We want audiences to take home the message that humans lived without plastic for quite some time, and it’s only recently that we have been over-consuming and sending it to places that it shouldn’t be in.
In 2019, we plan to launch a music project we are working on with some of the Sudanese community. We are developing some educational packages around plastic waste awareness and hands-on use for schools, and are building our own machinery so that we can begin to bring to life our designs and products made with waste that currently doesn’t get recycled.
Experience the D E B R I S debut at 7.30pm November 22 at the mini-theatre behind LongPlay, 318 Saint Georges Road, North Fitzroy. Tickets available online, and you can pay as you feel. The event is limited to 30 tickets.
D E B R I S features Alex Childs and Sophie Dahm (Colourful Collective), Asha Henfry and Erin Kersing (flutes), Rose de La Montaña (guitar), Ben Hickey (poetry), and Julia Calassao (actress). The project was supported by MCM IgniteLab.
Images supplied.
