Brodie Neill / Australia

Australia born 1979, works in England 2005–

Tasmanian-born, London-based designer Brodie Neill’s recent works focus on the environmental phenomenon of ocean plastic waste. Gyro, table, 2016, is Neill’s contemporary interpretation of an eighteenth-century specimen table which substitutes samples of marble, timber and ivory with fragments of blue and green plastic waste. This composite ‘ocean terrazzo’ is inlaid in pattern depicting the Earth’s longitudinal and latitudinal lines.

Gyro, table takes its name from ‘gyres’ – large systems of circulating currents that move ocean water around the world. The ebbs and flows of gyres are very effective, not only in distributing heat, transporting organisms and nutrients and flushing out sediments; but also in ferrying litter globally.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has identified marine plastics as a significant environmental and economic problem – reporting that we are producing between 220 million – 300 million tonnes of plastic globally per year. Of that volume, an estimated eight million tonnes is added to the ocean every year. Australia contributes three million tonnes of new plastic to this total, of which 130,000 tonnes will end up in the ocean. Research suggest that if we continue at this rate the oceans will contain more plastic by weight than fish by 2050.

BIO

Neill honed his design skills at the University of Tasmania and the Rhode Island School of Design where he focused on the potential of computer-aided technologies. The designer has since forged a strong international presence, evident in production pieces and high-profile projects for global brands Swarovski and Alexander McQueen, and public sculptures and collectible edition pieces for galleries and private collectors.