Forever Ephemera
Theyla Cathbert
Theyla Cathbert on ‘Forever Ephemera’:
Flowers are beautiful. Most of us can agree on that. Even if we suffer from hayfever. Yet they are often very brief. Some lasting only a day or less, then they disappear. Nature that brought them before our eyes takes them back and saves their substance for the next time. Their beauty is transient and rots away, back into the environment.
Not so all that plastic packaging that cannot be recycled by our local council, and many others. It goes back into the earth. Into a big mass grave called a landfill. Where it does not rot but will sit compressed under the weight of tons of similar plastic packaging. It played its part in the ephemera of our lives but it is not ephemera, is it?
It is believed that, in ancient Egyptian mythology, the Sacred Blue Lotus symbolised the renewing energy of the sun, a spiritual awakening, the promise of the afterlife, rebirth. Kind of like recycling.
In these illustrations of eternal blooms, each colour, pattern, and form is photographed from collected litter and waste plastic packaging, crisp packets, old carrier bags, snack wrappers, etc. It was being used by a local charity to make eco-bricks. Litter is ugly because it damages our planet. But the bright colours, especially when compressed into…
