Design & Architecture

The Gallery @Adventure Ecology HQ is holding its second show: Waste & The Lost World: Memento Mori. This gallery is the public face of an environmental group for children called Adventure Ecology. Like the first show, the artists involved are looking at serious issues, using nature as a focal point and a metaphor. The gallery has been painted a striking dark green colour and serves as a dramatic backdrop for the art work and sculpture. Alistair Mackie is a sculptor; his work (pictured) appears to be a piece of tree branch. In fact it is made from matchsticks, which were originally made from a tree. It is a reminder that we all return to the earth. He has also made a pair of dice, set with mosquitoes, an allusion to fate being a roll of the dice. Oliver Cleff’s large canvases depict items that have been discarded and have a melancholy and floating feel to them: an upside down toy, a horn. Most disturbing are Polly Morgan’s works. She studied taxidermy and uses found, road-killed birds in her pieces. One has a tiny bird resting in a matchbox, and another has a small grey and white dead bird sitting in a teaspoon. As she says: “We study the details of the animals now they are in peaceful repose, their colours, fur or feathers, the life that's past. While we consider their beauty, we could again consider our own mortality”. :: Adventure Ecology