Conversation with Reece Brice

I loved talking with Reece Brice, whose mushroom sculptures turn plastic waste into something magical. Each piece is a single bottle, transformed by heat and imagination into organic, glowing forms—like a forest of mycelium breaking down the past and growing a new future. His installations, lit from within with fishing line ‘roots’ and dancing light, feel alive, almost breathing. Reece sees plastic not as trash, but as a material waiting for its next life, and his mushrooms are a poetic reminder that repair is possible—if we just learn to listen to nature’s quiet genius.

https://reecebrice-art.shopstar.co.za/ 

https://www.instagram.com/reecebrice.art/

https://humanities.uct.ac.za/michaelis/contacts/reece-brice

https://www.lumenocity.art/artists-alley/reece-brice 

https://humanities.uct.ac.za/michaelis/articles/2024-11-05-michaelis-alumni-reece-brice-showcases-work-ucts-idm 

Biophilia, book by Edward Wilson https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674074422

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, marine biologist,policy expert,writer https://www.ayanaelizabeth.com/ 

This podcast was created by Natalya Khorover. It was produced and recorded by Natalya, as well as researched and edited by her. SALVAGE is a product of ECOLOOP.ART.

If you enjoy this show, please rate and review us wherever you’re listening—and be sure to come back for another conversation with a repurposed media artist. 

Music theme by RC Guida

Visit Natalya’s website at www.artbynatalya.com

Visit Natalya’s community at www.repurposercollective.com

Visit Natalya’s workshops at https://www.ecoloop.art/ 

Transcript

Welcome to Salvage, a podcast for conversations with artists about the repurposed materials they use in their art practice.

Hi and welcome to my conversation with Reece Brice. Reece's work is all about amalgamating art, nature, science and activism to form a positive environmental agency. All work is created from found plastic waste found materials. His work considers plastic not as a waste but as a material awaiting another life. Not an ending, but something learning how to transform in this imagined future.

Mushrooms inherit what we leave behind. Softly breaking it down. Quietly rebuilding natural environments.

These mushroom forms are a vision of repair grounded in both speculation and possibility.

I can't wait to ask him all the questions.

Thank you for joining me here, Reece. I, I was so excited to discover your account, and I was like, what? What is happening here? I was, on Instagram, and, you know, once the algorithm, once you start looking at are the artists who use single use plastic and stuff, you know, just I think, like, every day or every other day, I discover someone new.

So a couple of months ago, I discovered your account and I was like, I don't understand what is happening here. What what am I looking at? It looks really, really cool. But what is it made from? So I am delighted that you, agreed to be on my podcast so I can ask you all the questions. Yeah. Please.

Yeah. I'm very grateful to have connected with you to it, but I've been amazed by your your threaded works. Oh. Thank you, thank you. So can I ask you, what is your origin story as an artist? My origin story? I never thought I was going to become an artist person. Okay. Yeah. So,

So I, I come from, a little valley, coastal valley, Kommetjie.

Sort of grew up along the coast, always being fed different information, about about the ocean and,

Environmental problems. So I was always fascinated with that. And I think that sort of just, you know, drew me into, into that genre, of art.

As a child, I was always intrigued with drawing, you know, taking, taking apart things, put things back together. But I never, you know, I never believed that I was going to be an artist when I, when I grew up, that's sort of what changed. As I came out of high school, I sort of found my, my, my drive, in matric, which is when I, when I turned 18, I worked a lot more with, with, with painting, and through through painting and drawing.

I decided to go to, to art school. So I attended the Michaelis School of Fine Art, at the University of Cape Town. And from there I kind of grew into to where I am now. I'm, I'm, I'm at my third year out of out of varsity. I'm very much an emerging artist, still finding my way, figuring things out.

Yeah. There's there's no magical origin story. I guess it's just kind of old. It just kind of all happened. Okay. So you went to school to study painting, though? Yes. Originally I was up painting. I was, you know, just intrigued. I was intrigued with, with with painting and graphic design. I was on the fence with going into graphic design.

But I wanted to, to study something a little bit more. More broad, like, broaden where I can go off to after I was finished with it. And then that all changed, and I, I found sculpture and, you know, explored that. How did you find sculpture? Do you remember? Definitely through catalyst did definitely art school. I will ask is sort of introduces you to all of the different, the different mediums that you can use, different, of mediums, disciplines rather that you can enter.

I sort of from that, favorite sculpture. And that was the discovery of sculpture and then sort of moved into, into my creations today. And how. Well, what kind of sculpture did you make at first like. Well, so at first, I worked a lot with, with wood, sort of, but I still had this inclination to, to repurpose, to repurpose things.

I was, I was diving a lot in the dumps, finding different materials that I could take apart, put back together sort of how as, as as a child, you know, finding, taking for things. Finding things. I explored that, and then I found environmentalism, a little bit more in, in, in varsity environmental art and the genre of environmental art.

And that intrigued me a lot, also sort of drawing back to to growing up by the ocean, and everything I was taught as a child was the ocean being the true lungs of the planet, sort of our main oxygen producer? So, yeah, immediately you found parallels with the environmental mentalism and the runner up, environmental art, right?

Yeah. And.

How did you discover that you can make these incredible mushrooms from plastic bottles, like, like I. How does one go from looking at a plastic bottle to imagining it as a mushroom? You through a lot of play. A lot, a lot of play. I, you know, I play those with lots of found little pieces of plastic that I found on the, on the side of the road or in the ocean or on the beach.

And then one day I was just I found a bottle that had some water in it, and I'd really been playing a lot of plastic and heat. I'd been very careful not to, you know, go past the temperature to release toxins. How do you know what that temperature is? It's roughly around 350 degrees. Yes. So I stay away, but try to stay warm.

Most of the time I'm below that side. I don't go past the point. And you can also kind of tell if the plastic starts oscillating. You can also smile. I also got respirator on. Okay, good. But yeah, one day I found a bottle bottle, and I had water in it. And I started by chance playing with it with heat and it with, with.

That came about pressure in the bottle as the the water started to evaporate inside of the bottle. I noticed that the plastic would start to transform, and that's how I started to shape them. I started to learn the tendencies of different bottles. But this all came about from. So when I was in varsity, I, I discovered environmental art and the genre.

So so I delved into it, and I came across this computer model, from, scientists in the Leeds University. They've created this computer model that stocks, tracks the stocks and flows of plastic pollution globally. I think they've got, like, they've got data from I think it's like 50,000 different, municipalities. And from this data, they create a model that sort of predicts a few charities.

And this sort of intrigued me quite, quite a bit because most of the, the data you're getting, you know, it references now, it doesn't really reference or give you sort of this idea of the future, and this, this article that I found sort of, I guess you could say it sort of rooted and created the core of, of what my practice has grown into today.

In the beginning, it became this. I became obsessed with it. I had every day I would start to think about, you know, the data and what it's predicting. So I, I sorry, ultimately, the data, produced by this model, it predicts that by, by 2040, we're going to I think it's something like 29 million metric tons of plastic is going to enter our environments.

And then by 2050, we're going to be fully succumbed by plastic. So sort of getting all this, gaining all this information really drove me to, to, to want to create art that could maybe help curb this problem. And, you know, as an artist, I see, I believe we are we are translators, you know, we take in information and, we connect with people on an experiential and emotional level and from that artist.

And so that's that's beautiful. Yeah. And I think from that you're able to, to feed people information, information that, you know, not everyone is intrigued with reading a scientific article or looking at graphs. But if you're able to connect to someone emotionally or experientially through an immersive art piece, art installation, you you can feed them that information. So that's what I started to do.

But originally I actually started working more in. So I went to art school, started working in painting. But then I worked a lot in the studio, sort of in, for the photographic. Yeah. So I worked with on in the studio, sort of trying to imagine and create these futures, create little snapshots of these futures.

And I originally created a body of work titled 2050, which was snapshots of this, the year 2050 and how humans would have, would have had to adapt to, to live in this, this plastic second future. So I had people within these environments with breathing apparatus, wing wearing clothes to, you know, reflect the increased UV radiation because ultimately, this plastic doomed reality, the environment would be very, very harsh.

Were right. You know, our oxygen main oxygen produces the ocean, would be acidified and just certified and eaten, you know, unable to, to produce oxygen. Armageddon or. Yeah. So it was very dystopian, fold reality utopian, that I was creating and yes, it did sort of, you know, it did bring awareness and people were seeing this future and getting this information.

But ultimately I felt like I was I wasn't making much difference. Like, I was using up. Everything I used was repurposed out. I was going in the dumps. I was using different plastics to to create these environments. But I wasn't transforming the waste. I was creating these images. But I felt like I wasn't aiding to to the cause.

Okay. And I was also just like I was creating these images, but they were creating this, like, intense feeling of just devastating hopelessness, like, oh, I was just gonna say, yeah, that's yeah. It's depressing. Yes. It was very depressing. And, that's sort of just created a shift in my in my practice. Yeah. And then I started to, to research, you know, you know, what information do we have to change our realities and, you know, curb this plastic, doomed future?

I started to look a lot at the work of Edward Wilson. I don't know if you've ever read, his book Biophilia. Oh. I've heard of the book. Yes, yes. So how it outlines biophilia to be humans like innate inclination to focus on life and life like processes. And there was one specific chapter in that book, titled The Super Organism.

And the superorganism. Basically, this chapter outlines the life like process of a leafcutter ant colony, and the leafcutter and colony forming this symbiotic relationship with, plastic eating, finally, because, yeah, because leafcutter and they, they aren't able to to break down the beliefs that this cuts and bring a spring back into their nest. So they use the fungi to break it down and create a food source, I think was one of three living organisms that have, you know, over thousands of years been able to, to do this.

I think actually millions, as I said, that. Yeah, they've been able to form this relationship. And so, I was researching that and at the same time, I also came across an article on plastic eating mushrooms. And, you know, parallels started to form, and, you know, just like our society, the leafcutter and society is also broken down into these.

It's multifaceted, get the work and you get the forager ants. And they, they speak in through chemical secretions. We speak through with spoken word. And I started to, you know, see all these parallels. But there was like a big there was a big difference with the leafcutter and forming this sustainable society and our society, and it's inevitably not sustainable so much.

No, no. So I started with this information and also gaining this newfound knowledge on the different fungi that's able to break down plastic, plastic. I started to imagine a future where we formed this symbiotic relationship with the plastic eating fungi to, you know, have a sustainable society where, mushrooms are the main decomposers of our plastic waste.

So I guess that's kind of the origin of what you're seeing now. So you're like a scientist artist because you eat, you know, taking such a deep dive. I have to be honest with you. I read, I guess it's on a university website. There was a big description, and then there was another article talking about all the science behind your exhibition.

And I have to be honest, some of it went right over my head. I'm reading the words, but and I'm sort of getting them. But, you know, I'm not getting all of it. I'm getting the gist of it. I'm not getting all of it. Yeah, I'm saying thank you. Probably one of the words is mycoremediation.

Yeah. The mycoremediation is the process that that mushrooms, undertake in natural environments to decompose contaminants. So that's, you know, the title of these, this body of series of work that I'm creating now is, is Mycoremediation 2050, sort of, yeah. That 2050. Yeah. But now in mycoremediation, completely running. Running that. Yeah.

Oh, I love that. So now you're imagining a better future? Yes, a utopian future. Yeah. And it's. Yeah, it's it's sitting much well within my being. Yes. I bet it's, Yeah. I can only handle so much depression. After a while, it gets really, really exhausting. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. So I, I don't know too much about mushrooms, but I know that.

And I think just like trees, they communicate through this amazing root system. Yes. Mycelium network. Is that part of your. Yes. So yes, definitely. This, this symbolism of interconnectedness, is definitely a part of, of what I do. And I like to make reference or offset or represent that a lot in my installations that I create. So I try and I guess my practice is rooted in like trying to imagine, is it rooted in futurities and trying to imagine what futures would look like.

So I create these future environments, for environmental installations. The latest one that I created was, a waste depot. A plastic waste depot, where, where these mushrooms are eating the plastic waste, so and communicating with, with one another. So referencing that mycelium network. And then your light also plays an aspect in that, sort of with a domain and moving and just representing that, that communication.

Yeah. Mushrooms are, very intelligent beings. I mean, they, they run all of our forests through, through mycelium networks underground. They feed trees. They can tell if if a certain tree needs more water than another one, and then they will feed that tree more. Amazing, Yeah, it's definitely part of the work. Yeah. That's incredible.

So, okay, so back to your work about the light in your work that you did, you, like, had to figure out lighting design, too, or did you work with a lighting designer? I mean, I just I see those fibers that are all lit up inside of your mushrooms and like, well, for instance, if I had that idea, I'd be completely like, I have no idea how to do this.

Like, how do you figure that out? A lot of a lot of this, a lot of my work or all of my work. I've kind of just trying to apply myself as much as I can. I do sort of just figure it out on my own. I research, and it's a lot of trial and error.

But I feel like that trial and error, you know, creates all these little happy accidents. So, you know, all the lighting has been, you know, I figured that all out on my own. And the the filament that you're seeing inside is fishing line. Fishing line. Really? Yes. It's it's fishing line. So I try and create everything out of, you know, found material.

And the, the mounts that I make, the mushroom mounts I use, milk crates, plastic milk crates, in the nine. So the mushrooms, the plastic bottles into the milk crates into that. The bottom of the milk crates. Got those perfect, diamond shapes that you can sort of insert into. So each mushroom is the size of a plastic water bottle.

You transform one bottle into one mushroom. Yes, yes. I try not. Yes. No, I try and, not so in the beginning, I was working a lot of plastics, but I struggled to cut them and create little. I really did not enjoy doing that. I felt like I was creating more or I don't know. So I wanted to figure out a way that I could, you know, transform the whole piece of plastic in one without having to do that.

So yeah, that is one, bottle, whole bottle. That's amazing. You know, from the photographs, it's hard to tell if those mushrooms are, I don't know, six inches tall or six feet tall. They look like they could be ginormous. Yeah. I mean, I've, you know, obviously the size of the bottle determines it. Right,

but that's incredible. So how big are your installations? Like how many mushrooms? Installation total.

The latest one is this thousands, thousands of of. Oh, I have bottles. Yeah. Some of the sculptures go up to just under two meters. Wow. They're quite large. I've also created a big jellyfish, and that's also got thousands of bottles, inserted into it. Yeah, I did, I did one at a light festival recently in Cape Town, Cape Town Company Gardens, and that was about plus -15 to 25 by 20m.

Wow. And it was it was quite a large space. So I was stacking those milk crates. Then you're attaching them somehow and then attaching all the mushrooms into the milk crate. So one mound could be multiple milk crates with thousands of mushrooms then. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. Okay. So that that mound is representing a mound of trash.

And then it's made out of, you know, multiple milk crates put together, and then mushrooms inserted into, into the bottom of the milk crate. And then I use hessian, around the milk crates, and the hessian goes on to, all the byproducts that I've collected from. So from the bottles. So the, the caps of the bottles, the, the the labels of the bottles, I use that to create the mounds form because I don't want to.

Oh, I, and I want to, to be as sustainable as possible and not waste. So yeah, that creates the shape of the mound and then the hessian goes on top, and then on top of the hessian outer layer, that was, like a texture of, of sand. Basically you said, wow, make it as natural as possible. And then and then the fishing line goes inside each bottle.

Some of the mounds don't have fishing line. And some do, some of them I leave without and then I've got, I've, I've. Yeah, I've messed around a lot lighting, and refraction. So I'll have another piece of plastic on the inside that rotates. And then there's a LED lighting that will hit that piece of plastic, and it's sort of reflect, refracts light, outward.

And this is all inside of the mound. I'll put onto the, the mushrooms and brings into life. And then I've added like little silicone diodes to motors to slow them down. And it really brings this, you know, crawling a live breathing effect to the plastic because the plastic, as soon as light hits plastic, but the plastic, amplifies it on its surrounding.

Yeah. And you get this really cool alive effect. Those are the ones without the, the the line inserted into them. The, the line also acts. That gives them whole different, different feeling. And so with the line it's more of a fiber optic effect. And I also create a little snippets. I cut individual little, I don't cut I, I don't cut it off.

I just like mark it so that when the light travels through the line, it hits the, the little mark. And it also it refracts off of that and also brings more light in that area. It's fascinating. It looks absolutely incredible. I think there was one video in one of the articles I saw that was just, oh, maybe it was on Instagram.

I can't remember where I saw it now, but it looks like a magical fairyland. It's amazing. Yes.

Hey. Just taking a short break here to tell you that this episode was brought to you by the Repurposer Collective.

Our doors are open, and we would love to welcome you to join us. Thanks.

Now back to our conversation.

What kind of reactions are you getting from people looking at the at your installations? At first people, people don't actually realize that it's it's made out of plastic bottles, so that they'll come and they'll, they'll be a bit like, you know, confused to what, what the materials made out of which which which I'm very happy with because it, you know, it creates a sense of intrigue and, you know, it gets people to ask questions.

So it's been, it's been it's been positive. A lot of people think it's glass. It's been blowing. It's, you know, the process of making them sort of it's a bit similar to, to glass blowing glass like. Yeah. Yeah. And sort of the reactions have been getting very cool. What's the, recycling situation like in South Africa for these plastic bottles for like they recyclable is the what's the is the like here.

Well recycling is a farce anyways. It's not really working. But at least here in the United States plastics number one and two, which is what most of those beverage bottles there's a chance that they'll actually get recycled, is that is there a recycling system for that in South Africa? that for all the sculptures that I make? No, no, no, for the plastic itself in general.

Yeah. Yeah, we do have, we do have systems, in place and we a lot of companies and businesses here are all centered around, you know, being green certified. So there is this, this green recycling and sustainable culture. I would say that's alive in Cape Town. But we are just which is amazing. You know, I actually did a, so I helped facilitate the opening of, of, a laboratories, mission to become green certified.

Oh, so I, I did an installation with these mushrooms within the laboratory space, to, to to to, you know, symbolize their, their journey on becoming green certified. Because the laboratories in, you know, do, do produce large amounts of plastic waste. I would think so. Yeah. Yeah. Which is very refreshing that there's this movement of becoming green certified in lavatories as well.

Yeah. No. That's wonderful. I wish there was one here. But, currently I feel like we're backpedaling. We're all we're going backwards on a ton of environmental issues at the moment. I'm hoping that will reverse itself, I hope so, too. Yeah, yeah. Well, so what other materials aside from. And it's mostly clear plastic bottles, right? I don't I don't remember seeing any colored plastic bottles.

I do work with other with other colored ones, blue ones as well. I'm now also creating works with, with brown, know, sort of green ones, green works that are in the creation in the process of being brown plastic bottles. Yeah, yeah, I know we've got brown. Yeah. It's quite, quite interesting. Personally, I've started to, you know, learn how each and every bottle reacts differently and moves differently as I start to, to shape them.

Sort of like each one takes on, on their own personality. Is it different by brand? Like, if you know this certain brand of water. Yes. Oh, that's so funny. It is very much like aQuellé I know that I don't need to use high pressure. I can just use a bit of water and heat, and I can shape that bottle very easily.

As a Coke bottle, we'll need a little bit more, pressure. So I'll have to use a compress that you to in the shaping process to, to get it round and stretch the plastic artist and the plastic to make it more, susceptible to heat. You know, on certain bottles also produce different textures. The plastics, they can be, you know, how they how they molded and when they shrink down, and the, they're molded forms, different textures, and very much mushroom like textures.

Yeah. So what kind of tools to use? Like, what is that, a heat gun that you use or. Yes. So depending on the, on the plastic bottle, I'll use a different tool. But the majority of the time I'm using a compressor and then I've created, sort of made my own little tools for the, the, the bottle on the end to, to, create pressure within the bottles.

And then I'm using a, a heat gun after I've expanded the, the plastic. So I expand the plastic out, sort of blow it up, and it stretches the plastic so as it becomes sort of a balloon shape, maybe. Yes. Not not like as round, but definitely. Yeah. Not not not as round, but balloon shape blowing out.

And then I work back from there and then I'll use the heat gun. And because the plastic is so, and now you don't have to, you don't have to be applying, you know, heavy heat to it, which also you're not burning the plastic to the point where it's releasing its toxins. So you're not, you know, editing and you just kind of softening it.

Yes. You softening it and also the plastics, various this plastic will start to, you know, contort in on itself. And then you have learned how different bottles move, and then I'll use, I have gloves on, and then I'll use my hands to shape it and also wire and I'll put it in plastic, where I need to.

But a lot of the time I'm entering more of a, like a material dialog with plastic. It's, learning how to to move with, with, with the material instead of, you know, trying to enforce, a predetermined shape onto, onto, onto the bottle. I'd rather, you know, work with it and it creates more of these organic shapes. And it also creates shapes, you know, specific to that brand bottle.

Again, and like for me, in its own personality, that is so funny that they're so different, but by brand that just, you know, proves the point. You know, they say that they're it's the reason it's impossible to really recycle plastic is because there's so many different combinations of that plastic. Like, it's easy to recycle metal and glass because it's just like a few different kinds, but with plastic, it's thousands and thousands of different kinds of you just kind of proving that theory that it's impossible to recycle because of you've experienced it in your artwork.

Yes. No. There is definitely different formulations. Yeah. Yeah, that's very cool. So do you have a favorite? Very stubborn too. Oh. So, Stubborn. Yeah. some are very stubborn. My favorite band brand is definitely, the aQuellé bottles. And if you guys have that and we don't, I don't think we have, but it's a water brand.

It's. The plastic is quite soft. So you can really knock out, like, a lot of foam forms from it. So I like to use that bottle when I'm, time crunched. Yeah. And I need to make the installations of thousands of bottles. Then I'll. I like to get that brand. But a lot of the time I can't really choose because I'm getting plastic everywhere and anyway.

And it's coming in in all different. I'm not getting specific loads of bottles, you know. So I've got to. So how do you get your plastic bottles? So I get it from a lot of the time. I'll go to, we have a lot of people on, you know, trash collectors on, on our streets in South Africa.

And they will collect bottles and they'll take it into our recycle recycling depots and, you know, get paid for it, but they don't get paid a lot. So I'll, I'll offer much more for the plastic. And in turn, they'll come to come to me and I'll be turning it into, into artworks. So a lot of the time I get a lot of my plastic through that.

And then also, friends and families or events that I go to, I'll be I'll be talking to the people and they'll give me the recycling bags in and out and turn that turn those bottles into artworks. That's so cool. So do you now make commissioned installations? Is that what I'm hearing? That. So, yes. What I'm trying to to shift nine to full time is commissioned installations.

Yeah. So sort of funny enough, sort of finding my way in, in light festivals, creating installations with we are with in light festivals and also music, music and art festivals as well. I've created a few installations that, sort of been on the journey at the moment. Do you use music or sound in your installations?

Not done music. I have used sound. But it's it's it's more so it's been it's like plastic sounds. Yeah.

Plastic contorting and moving and transforming. Yeah. Oh. So do you like when you're transforming the bottle? You make a record of the sound, the record, the sound. And then I played in some installations. Oh, that's so cool.

I must have been investigating. Now, because mushrooms can also make music. You can make music from mushrooms, rather as they send out signals through through the, mycelium or even the fruiting bodies. They send out these signals and there's a machine, a synthesizer that synthesized music from mushrooms. So I'm gonna say experimenting with that now and seeing how I can incorporate that into my installations.

Wow. You know, I'm currently busy working on a a big, sort of old fashioned TV installation, where the the TV is getting its power from the Earth, and its antennas are also receiving information from, from its environment. And the whole screen of the TV is made from these plastic shaped mushrooms. Oh, wow. And then there's projectors inside that project through the plastic.

And then as you stand in front of it, you sort of immerse with these light refractions from the plastic bottles. Wow. The symbolizing the mycelium networks of mushrooms. That's transformational progressive of it. Where is this exit? Where is this installation going? So this one is also going to be at a music and US arts festival.

And then hopefully you're going to go into a gallery as well. Oh, excellent. Yes. So I have to ask this is, this is you're making big things. How big is your studio? What kind of studio do you have? I don't have a big studio, but I'm fortunate enough to have a studio. And my studio is is actually just behind me at the downstairs.

Yeah. I've got a power. Yes. Yes, it's. And it's on my my premises. Yeah.

Very cool.

Has all your work been so far exhibited in South Africa? Are you venturing out of South Africa? I am trying to venture out of South Africa, applying everywhere. And anyways, at the moment it has been, mainly in South Africa. But I've, I've sort of taken that shift in, in fully focusing on art now and trying to, you know, do it full time.

Where I was, I was juggling a lot with, you know, having other work and trying to, to create, create arts is very challenging. Yeah. Especially with big installations. That requires a lot of your time and a lot of effort. So now with that shift, I am trying to team to, to enter to, again, light festivals overseas.

I've applied to in the UK, in Spain, Canada, I think it's the Lumiere in Canada, in Canada that I applied for. It's also a light festival. Yeah, I'm just waiting. I've seen some in New York. I haven't been to any, but I remember seeing ads for them. Yes, yes. Oh, that would be so cool with the venture,

Hopefully the venture will happen. Yes, let's hope so. So if you, let's say you got into that festival in Canada, would you then create your work in the studio and ship, or would you make the work with the local plastic and in the location? Ideally, I would want to create the work, with the local plastic, within the location, the of it that comes with a lot of other practical practicalities in getting a studio and having to stay and not not, but yeah, ideally I would want to create that work within whatever country I find myself in.

Yeah, that would be very cool. That would be it relieves you to a whole bunch of new experiments. Exactly. It's this plastic will not be the same as your plastic. Yeah. How? That would be very fun learning different personality types through plastic. Yeah, yeah. I think you need to start, like, jotting down a notes for a future book with all the different plastic personalities.

Yes. Is that for sure? I very I've already thought about it in my within my diaries, like my concepts, you know, is made into a little e-book. Yes. That's fascinating. Do you ever work with studio assistants? At the moment, no. At the moment I'm kind of just grinding it out on myself, which, yeah, it's very taxing, but also rewarding.

Yeah, yeah. As, as I grow more and I, I definitely would want to start working with studio assistants, assistants. And also I start teaching, you know, people how to shape bottles, like create or. Yeah. Yeah, that would be fascinating,

Whole new world opening up.

Wow. That's very, very cool. I was looking.

I was looking through your website. I couldn't find an artist statement. Do you have a website? Actually, yes. Yes, I do find your website. I found articles about your work on the university site and that actually, just like I think last week became fully up and running. Oh, okay. Well, Yeah, I like that. It's quite fresh in my bio.

You can, you can, you can find it. Yeah. Just press on on the South African, website and, and you'll, you'll see my artist statements up there. Also a to my installations that I've created in the past. Right. Okay. So my, my light sculptures that I, that I do. So yeah, the ones that are the mushroom that I insert into would, come standalone, sculptural lamps that you can.

Oh. Oh that's cool Yeah. How much shipping from South Africa would be. Yeah it is, it is a bit heavy but yeah, I would do it. I actually saw it on Etsy too. Oh. Well good to know I'm going to. Yeah I haven't I guess in the last week I have not looked for new links. So I will have, you know, this is all quite, quite fresh as I've, you know, sort of taken the step in trying to come more fully fledged.

Yeah, it's all developing now. So very, very cool. But I did find this one. I'm assuming this is your sentence and I really like. And maybe you can speak it just a bit more to it. The work considers plastic not as a waste, but as a material waiting for another life and not an ending,

but something.

Learning how to transform. Yes. Be very poetic about that. Yeah, I guess it it goes back to my imagined few charities and, you know, imagining in the beginning I was imagining these very dystopian full realities. In the beginning, I was imagining plastic not as this thing that could be transformed or, you know, this this thing that's that's set in stone.

And, you know, through the transformational process of mycelium and mushrooms, sort of change that understanding into, into what you just read, how plastic can be transformed and been given a whole new presence, through, through living networks, you know, maybe the, you know, answers to the plastic problem. It is it is lying within, living ecosystem ecosystems already and not some something that needs to be discovered.

Yeah, that would be amazing. And if we could stop the useless plastic production, you know, the excessive packaging, maybe we can, we can get somewhere. That would be wonderful, right? Yeah, yeah. Hundred percent. Yeah. Now, I've been, Do you know the, the author Ayana Elizabeth Johnson?

She's a marine biologist, and she is, a policy person here in the US.

And she, she wrote several books, which to me are very uplifting because she talks about climate change and science and marine biology and everything. But one of the things she says is, the solutions for climate change are here. We have them all. We just are not implementing them. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Like we know so much, but we don't have the the power to implement that.

So hopefully we'll be able to do that sometime soon.

Sooner rather than later. Yes. Yes, I don't know. Do you have, legislation trying to pass laws to curb plastic production in South Africa by any chance?

I don't I'm not, I don't, I don't, I don't know, I don't know, I know there was I think there was talks with plastic, packaging. There was legislation that was going to get passed with changing how we, you know, mass produce packaging or shops and, you know, putting in and a lot of our shops have changed to, to, material bags or or you have to bring, you bring a, bring a bag worth to the shop.

But I don't know if there's been any like hard legislations or movements ready. But yeah, that's interesting because here in New York, they've been trying, I think for, for years now to, pass the Plastic Packaging Reduction Act, which is basically, you know, curbing the single use plastic packaging. And once again, they weren't able to pass it because so many of the, plastic producers that keep sending lobbyists and they don't want the, you know, they want to keep making the plastic, I guess there's a lot of a lot of money involved in the creation of plastic, in the plastic industry.

And, you know, the fossil fuels that drive the creation of, of plastic. I guess that also, you know, why maybe, you know, people or scientists don't choose to to come up with solutions because the plastic industry doesn't really want to change. Yeah. Their banking institutions, like you said that the solutions are there, but it's not investigated further or not put into action.

Yeah. And I think there's reasons behind that. There's huge reasons, very, very large monetary reasons behind it. But I always think like, how are we going to get through this? How we're going to get past that? Yes. Or maybe by making art and making sure people learn. Yes. I was gonna say that it's true. It's through creating experiential, artworks, I guess.

Yeah, yeah,

Well, thank you so much, Brice. That was. This was fascinating. I I'm so glad that I got to ask you those questions because I was just like, I. I don't understand how this this is made. I don't understand, so. Oh, thanks for having me here, sir. Yeah, I was a bit nervous in some points, but anyway.

Oh, sorry. And I didn't want to make you nervous. I know you didn't make me nervous. Okay. Oh, good. Well, I wish you continued success with all these endeavors. I mean, this will be amazing. And I hope one day you'll get to the other side of the world so I can see it in person. Yeah. Thank you. That's me.

I believe that happens. Yes, I hope so. Well, thank you again. This was great. Thanks, Natalya. Appreciate it. Yeah. Thank

Thanks for being here. That was such a fascinating conversation. I really hope that someday I will get to see his installations in person. They look like absolutely magical fairy land experiences. And with so much thought put into them, they're so fascinating. I could see myself being lost there for hours. Thanks. So thanks again for being here, and I'll see you on the next episode.

This podcast was created, produced and edited by me Natalya Khorover. Theme music by RC Guida. To find out more about me, go to Art by Natalya.com, to find out about my community go to Repurposercollective.com and to learn with me, check out all my offerings at EcoLoop Dot Art. Thank you for listening.