In the making: crafting jewellery from marine plastics helps clean up Country

Making workshops that repurpose plastic waste, and promote environmentalism and greater cultural understanding.

Making jewellery and wearable art from marine plastics presents a creative alternative that helps clean up Country, says Melinda Young from UNSW’s School of Art & Design.

The materials-based researcher has been teaching workshops with remote communities for more than ten years. Most recently, she travelled to Hope Vale in Far North Queensland on the lands of the Guugu Yimithirr Warra nation.

“You can make jewellery anywhere with just a few basic tools and techniques and innovative, thoughtful use of the materials at hand,” the low-tech craft maker says.

“Marine debris is already being used in art practice in North Queensland and the Torres Strait where marine plastics are an issue, but not in jewellery per se.”

“Using this sadly abundant matter can generate income but also raise awareness about this impactful environmental problem in the region.”

Hope Vale is the northern-most town on the eastern seaboard, a five-hour drive from Cairns. The Aboriginal community is surrounded by striking ochre, white and red sands, mountains, bushland and the Coral Sea.

The workshop was the culmination of five years of engagement. Ironically, right before her arrival, king tides swept the usually abundant plastics back out to sea.

“In a place where no-one ever buys plastic footwear, they just find it on the beach, suddenly plastics were scarce.”

Members of the Hope Vale Arts and Cultural Centre that hosted the workshop gleaned what they could and participants foraged among eclectic objects – “old shoes, thongs, lids, bits of rope” – to make their work, sharing knowledge and skills.

“I taught some basic jewellery-making techniques using wire, for example, to design and create custom earring hooks to improve wearability, and we explored other materials that can be used to extend the longevity of pieces created using traditional cultural techniques.”

“This is really important for being able to sell a product for what it’s worth. To realise its value and the skill of the maker. I also taught how to make cordage [string]. It was a hybrid mash up of making that evolved throughout the week.”

The final pieces were presented at the 2024 Cairns Indigenous Art Fair.

Ms Young’s research-based practice spans jewellery and intimately scaled textiles reflecting experiences of being in and understanding place and underpinned by complexities of place-based

making in contemporary Australia. She has exhibited extensively in Australia and internationally since 1997 with her pieces held in public collections and included in publications.

Her work explores materiality with an emphasis on found or repurposed materials. “I’m interested in how we can incorporate natural and unnatural materials from the local environment into jewellery; materials found on the surface of – rather than mined from – Country,” she says.

Becoming familiar with the materials, putting them aside to test ideas is important, she says. “The work requires careful planning – it’s surprising how quickly a piece of rubbish becomes very precious.”

In the months prior to workshops, she undertakes materials research, developing prototypes and samples suited to the available resources and likely skillsets. “At Hope Vale, most of the participants were Elders, so work needed to take into account limitations relating to manual dexterity and eyesight.”

All communities have different historical contexts; in some places, intergenerational and/or recent trauma also underpins the workshops, she says.

Hope Vale, for example, is a former mission site. In a break, Ms Young brought out her basketry, prompting one of the artists to race home to get hers. “Suddenly, we were talking this whole new language about what we could do with the materials,” she says.

“I handmake vessels and wearables using cordage and coiling, working with simple stitching techniques. In some places, there's a [similar] cultural tradition, but in others, the cultural tradition has been lost.”

In Hope Vale, artists are relearning techniques their grandmothers used by unmaking baskets, bags and other items. “That was a really emotional workshop. There's always a lot of big feelings and big emotions working on Country,” she says.

“The artists were really sad that there are no young people coming to the Art Centre. They're asking, is this all going to be lost again?”