Tau Lewis’s upcycling of materials
Among the many exciting projects our Members’ support has helped make possible is the mesmerising quilted centre piece of Tau Lewis’s installation, The Coral Reef Preservation Society, which was specially commissioned by The Hepworth Wakefield for YSI. The young, self-taught, Canadian artist based this work on a painting that hung in her childhood home and like most of her work it consists of readymade and found items.
Reusing materials is central to Lewis’s practice. In her use of recycled clothing, household items, and scraps from past projects she traces a material lineage that connects the work with pieces she has made in the past. This lineage also echoes the lineage of black culture throughout the diaspora: how religion, language, and art were passed on across the world and transformed along the way – a key theme in the artist’s work. In The Coral Reef Preservation Society shells becomes teeth and used denim becomes corals.
Lewis’s upcycling of materials is also her ode to the continuing diasporic traditions of resourceful creativity. The artist explains: “Across African, Caribbean and black Atlantic communities, some of our greatest cultural tools, and our tools against oppression, are created from a place transforming what is available to us. The process of gathering and recycling is a praxis: a transformative act that engages in care for the environment and honouring relationships with the past.”
This direct use of her environment strongly informs Lewis’s practice: she collects items as she travels and saves objects that might otherwise have fallen by the wayside. In a time when we are starting to question the culture of disposable objects around us, Lewis’s work highlights the power of objects that have had past lives.
“Objects hold energetic frequencies, affective histories and memory. I like working with things that have had a life prior to me gathering and repurposing them. I often think about the hands they passed through, what lives they touched and what meaning they hold. I see these things as carrying life and being energetically charged. I think this is sometimes what makes my sculptures feel very awake to me. The materials come together to be a stronger and greater whole.” – Tau Lewis, 2019
Tau Lewis’s work, including The Coral Reef Preservation Society, will be on display at The Hepworth Wakefield as part of Yorkshire Sculpture International until Sunday 29 September 2019.
