2019: Bottle Board

“Bottle Board” Project Summary

Over 1,300 recycled bottles are tied with linen thread to both sides of a recycled fishing net. The net is held up by two repurposed bamboo poles. Over 1,300 recycled bottles are tied with linen thread to both sides of a recycled fishing net. The net is held up by two repurposed bamboo poles.

In the Spring of 2019, the “Write Climate, Right Climate” course, made up of about 40 UVA students and lead by Environmental Science professor Deborah Lawrence and Charlottesville artist Amanda Nelsen, ventured to spread important information about Climate Change.

Students collected written notes from over 1500 conversations with UVA community members about Climate Change. Community members wrote of the science, history, and present concerns of our changing climate as well as what we do and hope to do to ensure a brighter climate future. The notes were toned, collaged, and placed inside plastic bottles reclaimed from the UVA Recycling Center. The bottles were painted half black and tied to a recycled fishing net. Each bottle is effectively a binary pixel used to create messages that ignite conversation and inspire action for the climate.

The “Bottle Board” piece was installed in front of Peabody Hall and Alderman library at UVA and relayed dozens of messages created by the Write Climate class and by the public from April 2019 until November 2019.

Course Inspiration

The “Write Climate, Right Climate” course was inspired by Morgan O’Hara’s project “The Constitution, By Hand”. O’Hara, a New York City based artist, was inspired to copy the US Constitution by hand after the 2016 election, inviting friends and the public to join her in the New York Public Library to handwrite the important document. To O’Hara, copying a document by hand “produces an intimate connection to the text and its meaning” while allowing the scriber to “discover” new things about the text and find “passages that challenge them.”

Professor Deborah Lawrence wanted to extend this social art practice and the power of writing by hand to the important issues of Climate Change. Lawrence felt like important climate documents including the Paris Climate Agreement, IPCC’s 2018 Climate Report, and Michael Mann’s “hockey stick graph” needed to more familiar and accessible to the public.

Write Climate 2019

After brushing up on their Climate Change knowledge in the classroom, Write Climate students began “tabling” on Grounds to talk to fellow students and the UVA community about Climate Change.

During these conversations, participants were asked to write their thoughts and feelings about Climate Change as well as hand copy excerpts from Climate science documents and policy like the Paris Climate Agreement. Thousands of notes written on recycled scraps of paper were collected from these conversations.

Write Climate students incorporated these notes into their art piece by collaging them together and tinting them with blue and yellow paint.

These tinted notes were stuffed into over 1,300 plastic bottles that were recovered by the UVA Recycling Center and washed, prepared, and sorted by Write Climate students. Each bottle was painted half black with latex paint.

These bottles were tied with thread to a recycled fishing net held up between two repurposed bamboo poles. The bottles were attached by the neck so they could be spun around to show either the black paint or the colorful notes inside.

Each bottle could be used like a pixel to spell out short messages, phrases, and even images. These messages were changed out periodically by Write Climate volunteers and the public. The messages were often designed to coincide with Climate events like Earth Day and Climate Marches.

The bold messages spelled out with the bottles could be seen from far and wide, on either side of the Board. The messages drew in the UVA community and the public to take a closer look at the notes inside the bottles and ignite conversations about the Climate.

The Bottle Board was displayed outside of Peabody Hall, on the west side of UVA’s Academical Village. Dozens of messages were displayed on both sides of the Bottle Board from Spring 2019-Fall 2019.