Oliver Horsman Art

December 2023

A nude 4ft tall Santa constructed from non-recyclable plastic waste, standing, bag laden in Castle Park (Bristol) invites a closer look. 

[It is the Season to be… Oh23] A nude 4-foot tall Father Christmas figure made from just a fraction of the non-recyclable plastic waste collected over the year standing on a plinth in a through fare of Castle Park (Bristol).. A self portrait of sorts, a record of my internal discourse around giving and the impact of doing so in our market led consumerist society.

It’s about our overconsumption and the over exploitation of our life sustaining planet. Naked, hiding nothing but the presents in the bulging sack. So much of our waste is hidden, this piece puts it all on display. We need to make waste more visible, when you do you start to see the world in a different way. 

It serves as a stark reminder of the environmental impact of our consumption habits. The sculpture invites viewers to explore and reflect on the pervasiveness of non-recyclable plastic in our lives. Searching over the forms you come across statements like “Do Not Recycle – But we are working on it” from Cathedral City now on show, rather than quietly hide on the back of the pack, how hard they are trying I do wonder as just underneath you are met with the unmistakeable infinity symbol of TerraCycle implying perpetual reuse, this disparity between can I/ can’t I makes it nearly impossible for consumers to navigate and this inevitably leads to inaction. 

It should be no surprise that the Christmas season is the worst time of the year for the planet, executive consumption and an overloaded recycling system leads to an excess of non recycled waste, which ends up either  being buried for future generations to manage or sent further out of sight to the poorest regions of the planet where the majority of it is dumped or burned… read more about the cost of Christmas waste and what we can do about it

How it was received

After much deliberation of where to leave the work I decided on a little spot in Castle Park (Bristol) and with in 30 seconds of releasing this people started moving over to take a look. I stayed a while to see how people would react to it. It turned out to be a real success, with people curiosity drawing them in to take a look, taking a detailed look over the forms to finding familiar wrappers, taking a quick social media pic then scanning the QR code. The QR code was a big success, drawing over 500 visitors to this blog post to read more about single use plastic waste around Christmas.

Overall I was delighted with how this piece came out and how it was received by the public. Thanks especially to anyone who shared the work on-line, like @baskingsnail and @mentions amongst many others on Facebook. This kind of sharing is essential for artists these days and is much appreciated!

I had planned to leave it there over the Christmas period from the 16th of December through to before New Year. However after 7 days of tracking activity on my website, thanks to people using the QR code to find out more I noticed that there were no new visitors. So, fearing the worst I jumped in my car and headed to bristol to see what had happened to my work.

I got there an hour later on a most beautiful evening to discover that the work had been taken. After a good while of searching I couldn’t find it any where I didn’t know how to feel, sad that it had gone and couldn’t make anyone else think about plastic waste but also incredibly proud that I had taken some un-recyclable plastic wrappers and turned them into something with enough value to steal. Now a few months on I’m definitely feeling very proud of all the hard work, how it was received and hoping that someone is still looking upon him each day.

How it was made:

The sculpture was created entirely from non-recyclable plastic waste collected from our household over the year. Using a heat gun, I carefully melted and shaped plastic films, lids, and packaging to create both the internal armature structure and external form.

The entire process took 30-40 hours, working late into the nights in freezing cold conditions. Each piece of plastic had to be carefully heat-welded in place to maintain the figure’s stability while keeping packaging elements visible.

Using this technique I have created several other pieces and have many more ideas in the works.