Recycle, reuse, repurpose

Recycle, reuse, repurpose

23 February 2023

There’s a huge amount of work going on behind the scenes at The Box to reduce our carbon footprint and minimise the impact we have on the environment. It’s a long road, but one we’re fully committed to travelling along, and we’re hoping to share much more with you about it in the coming months.

Part of the work involves looking at the suppliers we’re working with, the materials we use to install, produce and de-install our constantly changing exhibition programme - and what we do with those materials once the exhibitions have finished.

British Art Show 9 visited Plymouth in late 2022. It was a massive exhibition featuring the work of 39 different artists and which was displayed across four venues, including The Box. At The Box, it was presented across six different galleries. Installing it involved a lot of technical equipment and a large amount of timber which was used to build new walls and even create a small cinema space where we could screen artist films on a loop.

A visitor in one of the British Art Show 9 spaces at The Box

To help reduce the amount of waste from the exhibition once it was over, we contracted The Albion Workshop CIC to help with de-installing the show. Based in Plymouth, they provide rentable bench space and access to high quality, professional woodworking equipment for local makers. We were impressed with their ethical values and workmanship and really pleased they were able to recycle much of the timber from the exhibition’s temporary structures for use in some of their community projects.

A pile of wood in the North Gallery at The Box, Plymouth
A man de-installing a wall at The Box, Plymouth
The South Gallery at The Box in Plymouth during the de-install of British Art Show 9

Going back a bit further in time; do you remember the large ship structure from our 2020-2021 Mayflower 400: Legend and Legacy exhibition? This has been brilliantly repurposed by the Millfields Trust. Located on the first floor of the HQ building on Union Street, it's now a quirky space which is available for tenants of the Trust to book free of charge for meetings.

The inside of the Mayflower ship at the Millfields Trust
The outside of the Mayflower ship at the Millfields Trust
The inside of the Mayflower ship at the Millfields Trust

And did you know the Mayflower Museum above the Tourist Information Centre was refurbished last summer using elements from the Mayflower 400: Legend and Legacy and Wampum: Stories from the Shells of Native America exhibitions?

If you visit you can now:

  • get an introduction to Wampanoag history and culture alongside stories of earlier English voyages to America
  • see an animation called 'Turtle Island' which helps tell the story of the emergence of America
  • view images featuring the faces of descendants of the Mayflower passengers as well as descendants of the Wampanoag people who met them and helped them survive.
Wall of faces at the Mayflower Museum in Plymouth

Image credit
Mayflower ship structure images by the Millfields Trust.