Sophia L Franks – ‘What we Consider Waste’ Exhibition Opening

Marking the completion of a two year creative development program and driven by a burning desire to alter our relationships with food and waste, What We Consider Waste re-imagines design through waste and the potential that these discarded resources possess.The purpose of this body of work is to inspire curiosity and sustainability, encouraging a sensitivity to materiality and adopting new relationships to nourish local economies and ecologies.

Through partnering with Gold Coast Green Week and Dust Temple, What We Consider Waste explores this local food waste through the lens of contemporary art practice in order to promote awareness about current issues surrounding ecological concerns. Sophia L Franks translates the necessity for circular and slow design by showcasing a variety of sculptures made from food waste, highlighting an organic-derived material: a protein collagen-based substrate that defines the importance of materiality. Despite their deceptive appearance these materials are all natural and biodegradable. The natural dyes in each of the biomaterials are a combination of salvaged scraps and bi-products including coffee grinds, avocado skins, egg shells, citrus peels and veggie skin.

Experimental display methods, including lighting and casting has allowed Sophia to push the boundaries of the biomaterials capabilities and present them in new and exciting ways. Enticing the viewer to inspect the works closer and to form a sensitivity to the materiality. Sculptural elements unveil innovative and minimalist design strategies to accentuate each of the individual waste resources. By recontextualising and highlighting the discarded resources, What We Consider Waste questions our relationships to food, encouraging locals and visitors to consider the quantities of organic bi-product excess that is generated from commercial kitchens. The artist’s intention is to consider whether this can be sensibly uncovered in a way that benefits not only the venue but also the consumer, and environment? And challenging the way we think about art and waste.

www.whatweconsiderwaste.com.au

Artist Bio Sophia L Franks is an emerging Gold Coast based artist creating temporal installations and sculptures from bio-based and organic materials. Working within the fields of Bio-art and Eco-art, Sophia explores the use of non-conventional materials, presenting them in unique ways. As part of her arts practice, Sophia creates a biomaterial which is used to critique and investigate the ethical and material value systems that underpin our relationship with the natural environment. In doing so, her artworks encompass current environmental issues surrounding climate change, preservation, consumption, and wastage in the age of the Anthropocene. Sophia deeply considers the impact that she, as an individual has on nature and attempts not to sacrifice its health and wellbeing in order to create her artworks. Key to her practice is the feedback loop of the works created, knowing the life cycles of the materials she uses and their implications directly upon our fragile environment. Because of this and her ecological concerns, many of her artworks eventually deteriorate and biodegrade. By appropriating nature, Sophia is promoting aesthetic and poetic expressions that stimulate dialogue about sustainability and the interrelationships in our ecological systems in order to alter human behaviour and boost a conscious relation between humankind and the natural environment. Sophia completed her Bachelor of Art and Design at Southern Cross University in 2020 and was an Artist in Residence at the Level up Studio + gallery, City of Gold Coast in 2021. Sophia is now, currently finalising a two year Creative Development Program for Generate GC 20221/2022.