The Party’s Over

I have a longstanding obsession with aging balloons. Particularly once I became a mother, freebie logo balloons from events and a certain chain restaurant found their way into my home. I was fascinated with how they shrank and wrinkled, distorting their shape and the logo on them. I would document their demise through photography.

The Party’s Over refers to the fact that in opposition to their reputation for joy and celebration, balloons need to be recognised for their environmental impact:

• A CSIRO study identified balloons among the top three most harmful pollutants threatening marine wildlife, along with plastic bags and bottles.
• Burst balloons break down into small pieces of brightly coloured plastic that can look like food and are often ingested by wildlife. Balloons are often found in the stomachs of dead animals.
• Wildlife can become entangled in ribbons and strings that were attached to balloons.

I wanted to create some sculptures exploring balloons but of course impossible to cast inside. Instead, I made facsimiles of aging balloons by manipulating secondhand logo t-shirts. I dipped them in concrete to give them a weight more inline with their environmental legacy and to give the sense of them imbedded in the environment.