SHANI NOTTINGHAM – FUTURE HEIRLOOMS

Cowra, NSW 
Heirlooms connect generations, and keep stories and memories alive. Objects are valued for rarity, inherent material, cultural and societal commentary, or for sentimental, personal reasons. Bread tags are banal, mass-produced and usually worthless. However, I slowly transform them by hand into unique pieces, recognising inherent value in them: the resources and energy required to make them, diverting them from becoming landfill and entering waste streams, and drawing attention to our relationship with single-use plastics.

These are future heirlooms; artefacts of a plastic era. A contradiction, seemingly delicate but actually strong and resilient; usually trash but now transformed.

People all around the world saved and sent me bread tags, which provides the materials for me to create with. In this way, they are integral collaborators in my work. 

shani-nottingham.com
instagram.com/the_breadtag_project_/