This is the second of a series of posts featuring visual Waste Stories created by students from New College Lanarkshire. In this post, we focus on the related themes of loss and inheritance, which have a special poignancy for George and myself as well as for Mia McGregor, the amazing artist and teacher who made Read More…
Tag: story
Brattea fatua
A story about balloons has been brewing for quite a while. I’ve been promising myself to write something ever since I wrote the story about foiletti and my slightly more ranty but factual post about foiletti and balloons, and there have been various times when I’ve said to myself that I’ve got enough photos of Read More…
Bells and Rings
The Christmas and New Year period bring many reminders of waste and consumption, so it’s a particularly productive time of year for Waste Stories. For example, I now have enough pictures of Christmas trees abandoned on kerbs and paths to constitute a series (rather like our series of pictures of inappropriately disposed of dog-poo bags). Read More…
The Braeside tar pit
This story was created as part of our work with the Royal Highland Education Trust. It is a continuation of our Future Archaelogies theme. It is inspired by the enormous number of old tyres there are, stashed in various places throughout the country. It has a strong link to farming and the land, and is Read More…
Small hands, close to the ground
The story below reflects the way in which two projects I’m currently working on – Waste Stories and a project called Water and Fire – have begun to combine in my mind. Water and Fire is a collaboration between the Universities of Stirling and Glasgow in the UK with the Universities of Cape Town and Read More…
Nurdelology: a future archaeology of the plastics age
Earlier this year, we started working with the fantastic folk at the Solway Firth Partnership (SFP). This is part of a strand of Waste Stories dedicated to waste in our seas and along our coasts; we’ll add a new section to this site explaining more about this work soon. In March, I went to Port Read More…
The Patient Bride
Waste Stories was recently approached by Bruno Noriega, a fourth-year Film and Media student at the University of Stirling and friend of Phoebe and Marvin. He wanted to know a bit more about the project and to use it as a focus for a photojournalism assignment. Last Saturday, George and I went for a walk Read More…
A Feast of Souls
Night falls. The last light fades from the sky. The white of the snow, the bright red and glossy green of the holly: all turn to grey. Inside, Julia shivers and pulls the curtains tight. Marguerite wimpers in the corner. “Shhh! You must keep quiet, especially now. Dusk is the most dangerous time.” “But Read More…
The Smiling Snowman
He was smiling still, the wooden snowman with the broken nose. He wondered: if his nose hadn’t been knocked off, what would he smell? He had some interesting companions in the pile he had recently joined. An old toilet; some pencil crayons – pink, orange, brown and blue; a VHS video tape (he remembered when Read More…
Flower food
This morning (2nd December 2021), Waste Reduction (aka Stirling Community Food) had flowers. Pink lilies, the flowers just beginning to open to reveal dark-speckled, suggestive interiors. Huge sprays of Calla lilies, ready to fill a church or a village hall: wedding or funeral, they wouldn’t care. And dozens and dozens of white roses. Later, we Read More…
