My name is Bella Froebel, I am an artist and designer based in Naam, Melbourne and my current body of work concerns recycled plastic object design. In 2023 I completed the Masters of Design course at UNSW and prior I studied a Bachelor of Fine Arts, specialising in sculpture at VCA. During my studies I have worked with a wide array of media but across my practice there was always a thread holding the seemingly disparate elements together - found object. If I learned one thing from my studies it is this:
I work best in the bin.
Being an artist/designer/maker within the context of the global environmental crisis can be intellectually demanding, emotionally exhausting and expensive. I cope by using primarily salvaged materials in my practice.
Initially I started working in this way to alleviate the pressure of making mistakes with virgin materials - I didn’t want my mistakes creating more waste. Experimenting and making mistakes are integral to any creative practice but I was paralysed by my (well-founded) fear of contributing negatively to the environment. So instead, I began looking in the bin for things to experiment with, instead of using new fabrics from Spotlight I found scraps in the VCA cornucopia - the skip that majestically sat in the centre of the visual arts’ courtyard. I created my work ‘Tent’ in 2016 from completely found materials, I kept each fabric piece its original shape, tessellating them to create a wonky 3D net which you could enter and be immersed in.
My journey as a ceramicist began in 2017 when I became a studio assistant in charge of recycling the clay for a beginners pottery studio. Before I even learnt to throw on the wheel I was well versed in how the clay could be easily reconstituted if mistakes were made - even after firing. The circularity of this material gave me the mental freedom to experiment, fail and therefore create.
I pottered around for a few years but I craved more, I wanted to problem solve and I entered the UNSW Masters of Design programme in 2020. This was a steep learning curve as although art and design have many similarities there are also many nuances specific to design which I was unaware of I had to quickly learn. That being said, my research and perspective as an artist gave me a fresh approach to assignments that many of my professors appreciated.
I realised that much of my practice as an artist using found object could be applied to sustainability in design and so I set a goal of continuing this ethos in my design practice. My research lead me into a maze of waste management issues, not just in Australia but globally. I was appalled when I found out that most of our recyclables do not get recycled, that putting something in the recycling bin guarantees nothing and that most plastic types are unable to be recycled at all. I couldn’t believe the mess - from the plastic identification system being disguised as a recycling symbol, the lack of consideration for the end-of-life in product design and the total lack of infrastructure to deal with recyclables worldwide.
Creating change through design became my mission. The industrial recycling system has failed us by illegally burning, dumping or exporting waste (DW Planet A, Steinecke, 2020) and we can no longer trust the current waste management systems to responsibly manage ourwaste. Many have felt a sense of helplessness when confronted with this problem, asindividuals how can we tackle this Goliath?
My passion turned to action when I discovered the Precious Plastics system. Dave Hakkens, a Norwegian designer and environmentalist studied industrial plastics manufacturing systems and subsequently created a set of simple machines for people to get involved with small scale plastic manufacturing (Precious Plastics, 2017). His work has been key to finding my own agency within waste management and learning how to safely work with plastics as a maker. The machines themselves, although simple and userelatively inexpensive materials are designed with small businesses in mind, not artists on a students’ budget. Influenced by the Precious Plastics community I started recycling plastic with domestic appliances. The Brothers Make YouTube channel have a tutorial on how to use a sandwich press to heat HDPE plastic into sheets; from a tutor on campus, Matt Harkness, I learnt how to use a blender to shred the plastic; and from my own experimentation I figured out how to make plastic planks without using an extrusion machine.
Through research and experimentation I have been able to fabricate my own material from post-consumer single use plastics that would have ended up in landfill. These handmade plastic elements are then used to repair found pieces of furniture ending up with a totally unique and new piece. By completely controlling and executing the production of the furniture I am able to avoid exploiting any labour for profit under capitalism.
In summary my work as an artist and designer revolves around finding value in the discarded,
there is so much potential in the bin.
