As part of Glasgow commitment to the Children’s Charter, 'Engage the World to Change the World' Peter McCaughey was commissioned to research and deliver a sculptural work for COP26, that could galvanise school children across Strathclyde to raise consciousness of their role in recycling. The work explored how it could act as a template (both in terms of process and outcome) for future engagement.
The resultant work Seeds of Change is a series of Sculptures comprised of recyclable materials, created by Peter McCaughey and the pupils of the Sacred Heart PS in Bridgeton, to raise awareness of the climate crisis during COP26, as well as convey the message of the need to reduce, reuse and recycle waste in schools.
The initial research into the Scottish Schools system revealed that in an effort to reduce obesity levels in school children, and to offer a free alternative to fizzy drinks, water was distributed with school’s lunches- in plastic bottles, resulting in a huge amount of plastic waste. This became the focus for a series of creative workshops with young people at the Sacred Heart PS in Bridgeton, exploring with the pupils how best to make a sculptural work that would address the opportunities to recycle plastic through the school system.
The pupils tested and eventually prototyped a “cell”, made by attaching the plastic water bottles they drank from at lunchtime, to burst or abandoned footballs, ultimately collecting hundreds of plastic bottles to make more “cells’ for a series of sculptures. Across the school, every pupil wrote a Green Pledge, a promise about something they’ll do in their own lives to help the environment. Each pledge was added to one of the plastic bottles forming the sculpture – in essence a “green message in a bottle”. The work was a template, - an armature for content scalable across the school system, an example to young people of the power of rhizomic, tactical operations- focussed on the individual, concentrated in the local but mindful of the power of the inter-local that can be scaled to make measurable difference at a city-wide, county wide, country-wide level...
The project explored how ritual and performance, and the ultimate reification of materials through an artwork, might consecrate this personal commitment and imbue it with longevity. A significant aspect of this was installing the work first in the Mitchell Library, and then permanently at the Glasgow Science Centre- hallowed cultural spaces, subsequently visited by the school pupils, (many of whom were in these spaces for the first time), The pupils got to see their work exhibited and embedded. The installation acts as a symbol and potentially as a catalyser of the pupils’ commitment to a better future, through raising awareness of plastic consumption in their schools.
McCaughey collaborated with Glasgow-based upcycling social enterprise company, Rags to Riches, to recycle by-products of the artwork to make a small sustainable memento/talisman for every Sacred Heart pupil as a reminder of their active role in helping to make the sculpture and in tackling the climate emergency – again exploring how to embed a commitment through the use of an aide memoir or souvenir. The relationships established with Andrea Reid, Senior Education Officer for Scottish Schools in Strathclyde; Dr. Emma Morton, Assistant Group Manager, Sustainable Glasgow; Dawn Vallance, Principal Librarian, Mitchell Library; Dr. Gillian Lang, Deputy Director, Glasgow Science Centre and Elizabeth Gonzales, Headteacher Sacred Heart Primary Bridgeton, have built a platform for the ongoing research into the role of the artist as a catalyst, particularly with young people, and the role of the artwork in stimulating and consecrating behaviour change with regard to the climate emergency.
