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Close up view of a monsters face made from commonly found items of litter including foil trays and paper cups for teeth and empty crisp packets for skin.

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5 minute read

Litter Monster

The Litter Monster was an enormous, 5-metre high sculptural installation towering over visitors to Eden Rivers Wonder World, Eden Rivers Trust’s collaborative exhibition with Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery

Overview

The idea behind the Litter Monster was the question: ‘Who is the Litter Monster?’ The answer was revealed as being inside all of us: our choices and actions that allow the ‘monster’ to be safely contained or escape. This was represented by a human ‘cage’ from which mini Litter Monsters are breaking out in order to form one giant rubbish monster emerging from a crumpled fizzy drink container – like a genie from a bottle. The monster grasped a TV screen on which an animation shared children’s thoughts and feelings about the issue of litter in rivers, through the voice of their ‘Mini-Monsters’.

The sheer volume of waste from the Eden catchment that made up the Litter Monster was staggering and a shocking reminder of how one person’s thoughtless neglect can multiply into a major epidemic.

Man looking at a litter monster exhibition piece, constructed from common litter items in the form of a river of litter rising from the floor and depiction of a monster formed from commonly discarded items.

The contributors

The work was the result of a partnership between artists from Woodmatters, Rag Tag Arts, Gorgeous Media and pupils from Appleby Primary School, Petteril Bank Community School and Rockcliffe CE School.

The inspiration

The Eden Rivers Wonder World Exhibition was displayed at Tullie House over the summer of 2018 and there was a programme of related drop-in activities and events for families before and during the exhibition period. Schools and youth groups were engaged in activities leading up to and during the exhibition and three schools, in particular, helped to create the Litter Monster.

Challenge

Litter is a serious and very visible problem confronting the UK’s rivers and the Eden catchment is no exception. Litter can harm wildlife, causes blockages that contribute to flooding and is an eyesore that spoils visitors’ enjoyment of the river.

However, prevention is better than cure, so the challenge was to reach a young audience to encourage them to think about the impact of litter on the river and what actions they could take to help.

Approach

The Litter Monster was one of a number of projects commissioned by ourselves that invite artists to collaborate with organisations, young people and the community to find creative means to address issues relating to the river.

The artists built on the original idea to  create a litter monster sculpture with the children and incorporated a practical litter pick plus the opportunity to learn film making skills into a packed two-day workshop with pupils aged 6-10 years old in areas of the catchment where river litter is a problem.

Completed

  • 80 pupils from the three schools in the catchment took part in a 2 day project: a litter pick followed by making litter monsters and an accompanying film
     

  • Seen by more than 10,000 visitors to the Eden Rivers Wonder World exhibition in summer 2018
     

  • 66% of visitors highlighted the prevention or clearing of litter as a key message that they took away with them from the exhibition

The most poignant part of the installation was a single item of litter, displayed in a showcase as if it were some ancient artefact in the British Museum. It was a perfectly preserved M&M’s packet with a best before date from 2007 – 11 years before it was unearthed by the children involved with the project and dating from a time before any of them were born!

During the schools’ sessions the children working on the project talked about the influence of Sir David Attenborough and his TV series, Blue Planet. Little did they know that Ro Thomas from Woodmatters would get in touch with Sir David to tell him about the brilliant work that they had being doing…or that he would reply!

He praised the children’s efforts to fight Eden’s litter problem, and commented that ‘if everyone plays their part, as you are doing, our planet will be a cleaner and better place for the future.’ The letter was proudly unveiled at a special event at Tullie House for all those that took part in the project and was then displayed alongside the Litter Monster as part of the exhibition.

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