This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Back in June Creative Carbon Scotland advertised an opportunity for a local artist to craft this years Fringe Sustainable Practice Award. Those of you that know the award well will remember the original piece of paper we gave to award winners at the live ceremony. Things progressed from there and we presented our winners with a beautifully carved wooden plaque. This year however, we wanted to present the winner with a hand crafted award piece that took into account the ideas and aspirations of the Fringe Sustainable Practice Award.

Sarah Diver Lang

After sieving through all of the proposals, we commissioned Sarah Diver Lang, a printmaker and graphic designer working from Process Studios. The award piece Sarah crafted was beautiful. We therefore wanted to share the story behind its creation, and talk a bit more about Sarah herself.

The concept of the award was to use only found or recycled materials to reflect the spirit of sustainability. Sarah sourced her materials from local areas including Sam Burns Yard in Prestonpans, various car boot sales, and gathered objects from her studio collection.

The award consists of wood, copper, glass and graph paper. Graph paper was used to highlight the process of planning that goes into a sustainable production. The idea of using mixed materials was proposed in the hope that the materials, over time, would react with one another, reflecting our changing attitudes and response to dealing with sustainability.

Only hand techniques were used, without glues or electrical machinery, to keep the energy used to create the award to a minimum. Sarah used a screen print technique to print logos and the crucial winners information onto the wood and paper.

Click to view slideshow.

We asked Sarah what it was that attracted her to the award?

“I was attracted to the award due to the theme of sustainability. It is important to me, as a maker, to consider how or why something is made. It is especially relevant to celebrate this during the Fringe; amongst all the amazing things going on, I feel, there is also far too much of everything. Food and packaging, flyers and brochures hang out of over flowing bins, so it is essential to bring sustainable consideration to this ever growing festival.”

And, what other sustainability initiatives she is engaged with?

“Sustainability is a subject of great interest to me as I become more aware of my responsibility as an artist/ producer. In a lot of ways I add to the problem, as a graphic designer I work mainly in print over digital and am constantly finding my work adding to the world’s ultimate waste. It is conflicting to work in this way, and is a problem a lot of creative people struggle with. To combat this, I am currently making a magazine that deals with compostable paper and ink: ‘Outline’. The magazine will hopefully lead to raising awareness about our throw away culture; with this form of paper its fine to throw away…even encouraged!”

For more information on Sarah Diver Lang and her other inspiring projects, check out her webpage here.

The 2015 Fringe Sustainable Practice Award for sustainable design, content and production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, was awarded to Paines Plough for their production of Lungs, written by Duncan Macmillan, and performed at the Roundabout at Summerhall. For more information on Lungs, see our blogpost here.

The post #GreenFests: Meet Sarah Diver Lang, the crafter of the 2015 Fringe Sustainable Practice Award appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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