This project began at the tail end of 2021, when waste from the pandemic was piling up in mass volume. Disposable masks had become an everyday object, and I was very aware of the sheer volume being thrown away. I started removing and keeping the elastic loops from masks and began weaving them together into a 5-strand braid, partly out of curiosity & boredom and partly because I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away.

Then all the other little things we chuck without thinking twice - twist ties, bits of string and rope, a popped balloon - were impossible to ignore. I started saving these things too, finding that more and more material could be (had to be) worked into the braid. It became a bit of a crusade: if it couldn't be donated, recycled or used somehow, could it be a part of this project?

That is where the project started to hook me and take shape. The materials all behave differently. Some are rigid, some stretchy, slippery or static. Some are fragile and already starting to break down. Some have come from things that were coveted, beautifully packaged and carefully presented, only to become garbage almost immediately. A luxurious organza bag in a gilded box, a foil-stamped ribbon, a decorative charm, all creating a value experience for a fleeting moment and ending up in the same pile. Taking things apart reveals how they were made, and things that seemed completely insignificant suddenly become surprisingly distinct when you handle them in isolation. This work is partly a record of these encounters, a constant process of figuring out what works together and what doesn't (yet persisting regardless).

The process is slow and repetitive, a routine of collect > dissect > reassemble. Idle hands are the devil’s plaything as we know and keeping busy is deep in my DNA. I come from a line of engineers and craftspeople; a curious and resourceful lineage. There was always something being made, repaired, taken apart or figured out. Using what you had. You didn't throw something away just because it wasn't working yet.

As it grows, the braid opens up new possibilities for what it can become. It will be stretched out and viewed as a timeline, gathered into a heap, suspended against a landscape, wrapped, or built into something functional. The form is never entirely fixed; each new length makes another iteration possible.