Time to change

The Time to Change Art Project is designed to analyse feelings and perceptions about the European Crisis through several art exhibitions. It’s an experimental art project that aims to bring positive changes to our society. There are a growing body of people who care deeply about this and want to contribute in some way. I am lucky enough to be able to do just that.

The plight of asylum seekers is currently headline news but it’s not new. For as long as history has recorded, thousands of desperate and displaced soles have risked and lost their lives to escape the hellish and intolerable conditions in their homeland. When I heard about the ‘Time to Change Art Project’ I knew I had to get involved.

I considered how a piece of sculpture might put across the simple message that we are all human beings, some of us born into stability and peace and others born into chaos and danger, and it is the duty of the lucky ones to aid those less fortunate. My solution was ‘Spectrum’. Much of my work involves upcycling materials often found in scrap yards and this piece features such materials. Zinc public toilet signs have been bent into a cylinder and had their human outlines cut out to reveal an inner cylinder with country flags wrapped around it. The top of the piece is a bank of solar panels which power motors that gently turn the inner cylinder.

The flags have been arranged with the top countries in the world where asylum seekers head for, side-by-side with the countries which they typically have fled.

I want the onlooker to ponder what it is that makes a human being. The fact that I have used a public toilet sign is to highlight in an ironic way that the idea of human rights in privileged countries sharply contrast those in fractured countries. Where the former may complain that there are no public toilets, for example, the latter may be running for their lives.

‘Spectrum‘ was selected to be shown in the Tent Gallery (Evolution House, 78 West Port, Edinburgh). The exhibition opens on 13th and runs until 20th June 2015. For more information, visit their website: www.timetochangeartproject.com or Facebook page: www.facebook.com/timetochangeartproject