Arianna Richardson

We all know the three R’s. Reducing or recycling are easy enough, but do you ever struggle with how to reuse items? When does something truly become trash and needs to be thrown away? Well, one Lethbridge artist is turning that question on its head and reusing our garbage in very unique ways.

I recently chatted with Arianna Richardson who is a sculptor performance artist and sewist. She's a lifelong crafter and thrift store enthusiast, constantly collecting plastic-based trash and discarded craft materials, which she uses as a main source of material for her art. She told me why she first started using plastic in her artistic practice.

“I've always been a lifelong thrift store person. But then as I started to go there after thinking about art and all of that, a lot of the things I was attracted to there or wanting to collect, I'm really a collector. I feel like that's a huge part of my art practice is just collecting things and having them inform what I make...a lot of the things I was collecting were these really cheesy, kitschy little consumer products that I just was attracted to the imagery of marketing and the certain colors that are in there, or the materials that it started with souvenirs...and so I was thinking a lot about souvenirs for a long time, and then it kind of morphed into packaging somehow...I just find it to be a good source of inspiration. I guess consumerism because of marketing and because of all of that that goes into it that is really aesthetically geared...I was doing my master's degree, and they kind of get you to really think, what am I doing? Why am I doing the things I'm doing? So I'm just sitting there looking around my studio and thinking like, wow, everything around me is plastic. Every little thing I've collected and everything I'm attracted to aesthetically and materially. I look at it and as a whole, it's all plastic and just for me, it was just a big epiphany of, wow, okay, what does that mean?”

We discussed one specific material she uses in her art.

“Everything I do is really kitschy and bright and colourful, a lot of decoration. I try to really push the limits of frivolous decoration and just try and put layer upon layer. It's often sparkly, and multicoloured. So with packaging, I really love tinsel...So I was thinking about that and thinking about plastic and environmentalism, becoming more aware of the plastic pollution problem. So then I was eating chips...And I'm looking there eating. I'm like, wow, the inside of the bag looks like tinsel. I'm like, why is that? Does it have to do with keeping the chips fresh? Is it aesthetic does excite our mind and it makes us want to eat more chips? Maybe there's a psychological element there that the packaging companies are using to sell more products...so I thought, I feel guilty creating all this garbage eating chips as a snack. I love tinsel. I don't want to just go spend a bunch of money on tinsels, so wow, maybe I can start trying to use chip bags for an art material and then figuring out how to do that. And then it kind of led to just looking at packaging in general in a different way. And there isn't really consumers without packaging...Packaging is a necessity. It gets goods to consumers, which is a necessity of life. We need things, we need food, but it's also unnecessary. So again, it's like this weird, the amount that there is unnecessary, and just the sheer amount that we throw away is shocking. So there's again, just that ambivalence. I'm always looking for these points of the conflicting feelings or truths, like I'm horrified by the amount of packaging that I generate, but I also really love the packaging that I collect from that consumption, and I feel excited to use it. So it's like, how can I feel these two totally conflicting things and just, I think we all have that about so many things. So it's just a huge source of work for me.”

Arianna often performs under the pseudonym, The Hobbyist. She told me how this came about. 

“As I became interested in talking to people about garbage, I guess that's the impetus for doing performances in a way, is just this way to interface with people more. Because showing art, being an artist, there's really a disconnect with the audience when you make an object and people see it. And if it's in a gallery, I don't know who sees it. I don't talk to those people unless they specifically reach out, which happens occasionally, but it just kind of exists out there. So I was like, well, how can I explore these ideas that I'm thinking about with people and try and check their vibe on it? Performance art? I'll try that. So then the hobbyist kind of became this easy title for my performance persona, and that's kind of how I've been now. Now I'm kind of like a hobbyist data collector with my surveys. I'll try and parse all the information I've collected and make these little charts and try to makes sense of the experience in a hobby statistics...I've been thinking about that persona almost more as a clown character in some ways. It kind of invites people in. So strange when you just see someone wearing a gold head-to-toe gold jumpsuit with a clipboard, you're like, what's going on there? That's not something you see. So I hope piques someone's curiosity and then they can come talk to me and I can talk to them about garbage.”

One of her performance pieces is called Garbage Party, which she set up in Lethbridge in 2018.

“I built this garbage can that's 10 feet long, and it's like garbage can height four feet, and it's all hand-woven. It's like a really beautiful piece of hobby craft infrastructure...so this garbage will be installed. It's been up for a week in a spot. It's been up for a month in a spot. And then I'll go and do some performances where I go and kind of collect trash and document everything I've picked up just to see what's out there in whatever spot I'm in...and also conducting these interviews with people and talking to them about their trash habits and their thoughts on trash...I want to talk to all kinds of people. I don't want to just talk to art, school-educated, art-aware people. Then I am in this little bubble. I want to give it to everyone. Everyone deserves the joy. Everyone can understand my art...It's like if I want to talk about ideas of change and environmental awareness or something like that, if there's that piece in my art, it's like why would I not want to spread that to as wide of an audience as possible?”

Arianna’s playful, colourful pieces help people rethink their relationship to garbage and feel empowered.

“And making it really loud and in your face with colours and patterns and dazzling sparkles. And that's part of my strategy to trick people into thinking about garbage and waste and these heavy consumerism and the impact on the environment, all of that. It's really heavy and dark, and it doesn't make you feel good. So if you can invite people into this gallery with fun colours, exciting patterns, it's playful. And then you kind of get closer and you're like, oh wait, it's made of garbage. Why is that? Maybe it can lead people down a trail to thinking about it without having to feel super bad, not very generative. If you're feeling bad and defeated and helpless, you're not going to feel empowered to do anything about it.”

Arianna’s artistic practice has helped her cope with some of her feelings around the plastic pollution problem.

“for me, finding a way to use that material and use the waste that I'm generating has helped me feel better and has been an outlet for me to not have as much anxiety about knowing about all these things that are going on in the world and not having any control over it.”

Lastly, I asked her about what people can do to have an impact on the plastic pollution problem.

“I think little changes can have big impacts, even if only in your own mind, even if it's only in your own psychological space. I think there's a lot of value in that. If you feel better, you'll be able to do better. So if we reusing your chip bags to make whatever you want to make with it makes you feel good, then I say do it.”

We discussed many more things. To hear my entire conversation with Arianna, check out the podcast episode in the link below.

An Indispensable Conversation About Plastic & Art - In Over My Head Podcast

Written by Michael Bartz