BigShinyThing

All we have to say is: Ceremony, Hallelujah, Blue Monday, Hacienda.

Via NME.

Manchester based artist Hilary Jack has set up a website of images of plastic bags caught in trees. As the project developed, she started to stick her own bags in trees with little signs as well as inviting people to submit photos. She writes on the site:

Two winters ago I noticed an unmarked turquoise carrier bag trapped in a leafless tree in a city centre street, startling and vibrant against an otherwise colourless, urban, winter landscape. The image stuck with me, and I decided to make it into a public work of art.

As well as demonstrating the peculiar madnesses that the net seems to bring out in people, the project is also socially minded. Jack adds, “Urban trees and shrubbery planted at the whim of an architect or urban planner become a magnet for detritus, turquoise bags being the most visible. As a reminder of our consumer culture the bags hang there, taking years to decay, and acting as an absurd memorial to our excesses.”

Maybe she should include that lovely scene from the 1999 film American Beauty, the video footage of a plastic bag blowing in the wind.