Irn People
Unique, handmade jewelry and sculptures made using reclaimed Irn Bru cans.
Surprised with the amounts of flat can in the streets of Glasgow, Merel Bekking began collecting all the Irn Bru cans she would find on het daily commute. After collecting well over 1400 empty Irn Bru cans, Merel melted them all down to liquid aluminium, which she used to cast new sustainable miniature brooches and busts using the lost-foam technique. One street-found can gives about 10 grams useable aluminium. Every brooch, every head is hand-made and unique.
Cards and prints of flat cans were sold to fund this project.
5% of every sold aluminium object will go to the anti-littering campaign Keep Scotland Beautiful.
2019 - 2020
Colour, Life and Light
The Things I Need
Borrowing techniques from taxidermy, Bekking created new objects by sculpting a body around a wire-framework. Instead of using traditional materials, Bekking “stuffed” her designs with her own personal non-recyclable dry waste like single-use plastics, food packaging and the occasional torn nylon stocking. As an outer-skin she covered the bodies with bright, colourful layers of yellow, orange and red environmentally-friendly resins, finishing with a high gloss protecting layer. Instead of discarding her waste at the city council dumpsites, where it will survive unchanged until the end of time, Bekking immortalizes her rubbish in joyful, bold designer objects.
2018
