You said as a child it was quite natural for you to go to the tip and to assemble something new from discarded objects. Do you think society, as a whole is less likely to do that now? Rather than repair and reuse things, we’re more inclined to just buy a new one?
Since the 50’s there’s been a new phenomenon. We’ve never been faced with this before. Things are instant.
Even with appliances for example, it’s much cheaper these days to just throw it out and buy a new one than to get it repaired, if it can be repaired.
Sometimes with some of these things, they’ve got a limited lifespan anyway.
I think we’ve been through that cycle and now people are realising the limitations with that.
We’ve got the economic reality now forcing people to stop just blatantly spending on these products and start focusing a bit more on fixing things if it’s possible, or buying things that can be fixed, or treating things with a bit more care.
I really believe that we’re on a whole new curve and it’s been a result of learning the limitations of the curve that we were on.
If my work can in any way encourage the realisation that you can recreate, reuse, recycle, you can live in a different way.
It’s time for people to start creating their own vegetable patches and their own solar banks on their roof, for people to bring it back to what they’re doing at home.
I think that’s a really important thing. In simply doing that alone, people will be giving a lot more attention to what they can contribute to the health of our planet.
