Waste as resource: Rethinking scenic design through biomimicry for a sustainable ecology

Abstract

Theatre performances have gradually gained recognition as an essential tool for information, education and entertainment. During such performance, set design constitutes a major indication for the overall understanding of the story, and spectacle. The general observation has been that these sets do not last long due to wear and tear from construction and striking down. In the context of global sustainability talks, however, designers have not explored much with environmentally-friendly materials outside of the defined conventions of set designing and building. Employing an Arts-Based Research design, with theatre as the mode of enquiry, I explored the appropriation of waste materials for the purposes of designing scenery for theatre performance. Data for this study was gathered on two levels: generating data – through theatre performance; and collecting data – through interviews of some selected Ghanaian set designers for an assessment of the production process and output. The qualitative analytic tool of deductive interpretivism was used in aid of providing explanation for the outcomes. The findings revealed that the output of waste designing is highly dependent on the sophistication of technology used. The method of remolding the waste plastics particularly of grades low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and polypropylene (PP) by melting was unsustainable as it posed a health hazard of emitting toxic gases into the atmosphere. In the end, water and beverage bottles belonging to grade polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and water sachet plastics of grade LDPE were determined as conducive for the project based on the facilities available at the time of implementation