News, Ideas, and Information from artist John Kenneth Melvin , a California based artist with exhibitions around the world.

A wide range of materials and methods are popular in Melvin's work, including themes of flexible structures, natural geometries, time , place, and change

Exhibitions of his work have been in San Francisco, Portland, Santa Fe, Sarasota, and Boston nationally, as well as internationally in Scotland, France. and Ukraine. Melvin earned his BFA from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, Massachusetts, a Post-Baccalaureate from the Pont-Aven School of Contemporary Art in France, and received his MFA in 2009 from the San Francisco Art Institute.

More at John K Melvin dot com.

17th August 2018

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Thinking back to my residency with #worldmonumentsfund in #cambodia where I crafted a series of #plasticpollution #art #projects. How time goes. #latergram #2016 #thankful #artlife #angkorwat #lightandshadow

Thinking back to my residency with #worldmonumentsfund in #cambodia where I crafted a series of #plasticpollution #art #projects. How time goes. #latergram #2016 #thankful #artlife #angkorwat #lightandshadow

Tagged: worldmonumentsfundcambodiaplasticpollutionartprojectslatergram2016thankfulartlifeangkorwatlightandshadow

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12th January 2017

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Don’t eat that lighter. Pass on the Plastic please!

Excerpt from an article I wrote for WMF: “In November 2016, I was invited by World Monuments Fund to discuss possible solutions to and methods for overcoming plastic pollution and other waste management issues at their work sites. In the process, I discovered many things about myself, Siem Reap, and Cambodia. My first week was largely observational. I witnessed the incredible restoration work at Phnom Bakheng and at Preah Kahn being done by WMF staff. I observed tourists and locals using massive quantities of disposable plastic in Siem Reap and at Angkor archeological sites. I observed the huge cultural event of Bon Om Tuk (water festival) in the city center and its utter reliance on plastic products. I also observed the daily routines of the World Monuments Fund staff at Angkor. Plastic is everywhere, and it is far too easy to simply say that it is bad. Yes, of course, with connections to cancer, infertility, respiratory disease, and many other human illnesses, plastic is bad. But strangely, this information doesn’t overcome egotistical immunity. Why? Few of us know, and I was determined that this be the focus of my work: to make information about plastic pollution accessible and personal. I also observed that the scale of plastic use is far too great to understand when our level of understanding is at zero. With this realization gained from the first week of observation I had undertaken, I shifted to research focused on several widely popular materials, including plastic bags, Styrofoam take-away containers, personal plastic water bottles, and plastic cigarette lighters. My objective was to create an understanding that would result in an elimination or serious reduction in the most prevalent and destructive types of plastic pollution.” Continue reading here: https://www.wmf.org/blog/dont-eat-lighter-case-against-plastics Thank you World Monuments Fund

Tagged: worldmonumentsfundplastic pollutionplasticfreecambodiaenvironmententitlementimmunityawarenessplastic

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13th December 2016

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Showtime (plastic pollution presentation at WMF)

 (presentations took place the end of November 2016)

I have always found that teaching is an experience and making that experience visceral is the key to comprehension for the student.  Sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell would be used in a memorable experience that would also establish a baseline of information for the staff at World Monuments Fund.  I presented myself as somewhat of a clown attempting to eat plastic bottles, bags, my hand pretending to be a fish, eating lighters, etc., and in this way, I lured the audience in with humor.  Then, a dialog based presentation of documentary images showing plastic pollution, that built on the absurdity of my invented character attempting to understand why we would want to use plastic, when plastics (and cancer causing dioxins) are being found in the stomachs and flesh of animals destined for human consumption.  All my actions are backed by science but in this manner, the message was simple and clear, why use disposable plastics if it will ultimately wind up on our dinner plate?

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To the point, we are in fact eating plastic when we eat seafood.  And very likely in developing countries, it may also be the case when we eat animal meat; in fact it has been documented that cattle and pigs are dying of plastic impaction.  

My plan was hatched from passion, depression, and inspiration to change minds. The rehearsals done with the office staff were immensely rewarding, immediately after speaking with them, the next day they told me of when they went to the market they asked for no bags at all or only one bag!  All are using reusable containers for their lunch and breakfast and many are reusing their plastic bottles for drinking water.

Later, after organizing a time with the Phnom Bakheng restoration crew, I made a presentation to nearly 100 workers, all were laughing and following along intensely.  There was lots of conversation during the comments and the two translators were working non-stop.  We learned a lot.  We learned that previous methods of didactic ‘top-down’ instruction had failed to connect to the workers.  Our presentation, was one that had connected in spades.  They wanted copies of the pictures, they wanted reusable containers, they had questions about specific plastics, what about water bottles, and more and more.  They were hooked.

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Later in the same day, the experience was repeated, and even with a smaller group, we had a conversation on the problem, on the solutions, brainstorming on the way forward through plastic pollution.  

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In all experiences the personalization of the pollution had the greatest effect. Almost everyone loves seafood, and in Cambodia, this is all too true.  Flash an image of a fish with plastic found in its stomach on a screen and visceral is a minimal description at best.  In fact, the fish with plastic is the most popular image requested.  As with other campaigns, the birds are of course popular as well.  Connecting plastic pollution to land based food production is also hugely effective.

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A movement has been created, we are in fact eating plastic and we are in fact eating food contaminated with cancerous dioxins that have hitched a ride on plastic.  Our immediate focus is to eliminate on a personal level all that we can from our daily lives.  Bags, bottles, cups, and other high profile consumer plastics are the easiest to eliminate. If we challenge ourselves to do it for a month, imagine what we can do in a year!  I am hoping to be back in Cambodia very soon, and I feel strongly that Cambodia can lead the world in how to manage consumer waste.  

Tagged: plastic pollutionplasticfreecambodiaworldmonumentsfundcambodiaenvironmentsustainabilityplasticjohnmelvinjohnkmelvinjohn k melvinjohn melvin

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30th November 2016

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#memories #symmetry #doorways #cambodia #artlife #siemreap #taprohm #angkor (at Ta Prohm Temple, Siem Reap, Angkor, Cambodia)

#memories #symmetry #doorways #cambodia #artlife #siemreap #taprohm #angkor (at Ta Prohm Temple, Siem Reap, Angkor, Cambodia)

Tagged: artlifedoorwayssymmetrymemoriescambodiasiemreaptaprohmangkorworldmonumentsfund

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26th November 2016

Post with 1 note

Plastic Pollution

(day 14 of my month long residency with World Monuments Fund) 

My mission with WMF is waste management.  What to do with the scraps?  As remarkable as these temple structures are, being constructed without modern surveying equipment, there will be scraps in the fitting.  The workers had taken to heart the need for this and many had installed mudflaps of scrap pvc on their motobikes, and other short term solutions. 

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The problem of course, is that like many plastics, it becomes stiff and brittle with UV exposure.  In the future, I hope to make a demonstration of plastic bottle bricks as it is a cheap and excellent end use of plastic waste for building material.  

Plastic never really gets recycled.  In general it is a downgradable material.  For each subsequent life cycle it can only be used in a diminishing strength application.  Witness poly fleece jackets, the end cycle generally of plastic bottles.  Worse yet, research is showing that by washing these textiles they shed microscopic plastic fibers into the water system whereby they are absorbed and/or eaten by animal life, thus entering our own food chain. 

Our immediate concern was to reduce or eliminate the daily plastic consumption by the Khmer work force.  Like much of Southeast Asia and developing countries, the cheap cost of disposable plastic is far too tempting to pass up.  The education on its dangers is non-existent and only a few microscopic examples exist in the region where even recycling of plastics is available.  As a westerner, I take responsibility for this, our consumerism became the ideal lifestyle for developing countries and disposable plastics are the armature for the fast food, short use, lifestyle we epitomized.  Luckily, our culture has learned some things.  Context is relevant, as largely due to the travesty of the Khmer Rouge and its Killing Fields let by Pol Pot, the Cambodian culture suffered a monumental loss of intellectuals.  Teachers, artists, scientists were the first to be killed. This created a multi-generational effect that to this day can be seen even long after the end of Khmer Rouge. There is a significant lack of education throughout Cambodia.  As beautiful as the people are, and as relentless as they are about striving for success, many adults cannot read or write, and many do not have an education beyond grade school.  It is simply a fact.  And a lesson of history we should all bare witness too particularly in our contemporary moment.

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 How to educate the staff on how plastic is bad?  I had spent weeks observing the staff, the interactions, their daily routines, and their use of materials.  I had spent weeks researching and contacting other NGO’s with similar missions to eliminate or curb plastic consumption.  I spent several days observing the water festival and the massive amount of pollution, much of it swept into the river, destined for the sea. I observed pictures from Phnom Penh of the same, and throughout Cambodia of plastic simply being tossed into the water system.  I have seen every type of plastic in the water ways and ditches of Cambodia, sytrofoam, water bottles, cigarette lighters, chairs, tables, fishing line, buckets, the list goes on and on, every type of plastic was thrown to the side.  I also drew upon my two months prior to Siem Reap, in Otres Village, a beach town near Sihanoukville on the Cambodia coast of the Gulf of Thailand.  There, I saw beaches drowned in plastic. 

 Let me make this point abundantly clear, I do not hold the Cambodian’s accountable.  They simply don’t know.  In fact, as tourism is the driving economic force here, I hold the tourists more accountable and they should act accordingly.  

 My passion for eliminating plastic pollution clouded my mind at first, I could not arrive at a way to teach it.  I knew that the abstract concept of environmental pollution was too much.  I witnessed not only trash piles of plastic burning, a horror, yes, but horror of horrors, I witnessed families starting their cooking fire with plastic and even worse, boiling eggs in plastic bags in water!  It became clear that we had to go for the gut to me and my guide, Ginevra Boatto (she is the only foreigner on the WMF Siem Reap team, meaning that the Khmer team is extremely autonomous), .  Luckily this has also been the focus of much of the scientific research on the dangers of plastic pollution. Admittedly, I am passionate and dramatic about this but the following quote from EPA chemist Richard Engler in a 2012 review  makes it clear, “ While current research cannot quantify the amount, plastic in the ocean does appear to contribute to [persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic substances] in the human diet.”

 In an industrialized world, caution is the preferred strategy, we do not need a to prove beyond a doubt that plastic pollution is bad.  If there is even the remote chance that it is, and science tells us there is a very strong connection, we must eliminate the practice and consumption of plastic.  In the next post, I’ll detail how the presentations went. 

For now, I want to provide links to the many other organizations that are working diligently on this issue.  

 Replacement Strategies:

Refill Not Landfill, have partnered with several businesses to sell reusable drinking containers along with water refill stations throughout Siem Reap.  https://www.facebook.com/pg/refillnotlandfillkh/about/?ref=page_internal

 Plastic bags are also a serious source of pollution, the average Cambodian uses 52 bags per week.   CleanBodia, makes biodegradable bags http://www.cleanbodia.com/bag-info/

Bamboo straws are an amazing replacement to plastic straws in that they can be washed and reused 30 times at which point they can be composted.  Green Umbrella is just one organization doing this, http://greenumbrella-khmer.org/?page_id=612

 Styrofoam containers cause cancer and pollute the environment.  A company, EcoSense is producing biodegradable containers in Phnom Penh.  http://www.ecosense-cambodia.com/products/

Existing Plastic Pollution

Several organizations in Siem Reap are focused on the recycling aspect of plastic.  They are somewhat more known as they operate a physical business selling products.  

·Rehash Trash is recycling plastic bags into rugs, baskets and other items, https://www.facebook.com/RehashTrash/

Siem Reap Food Coop hosts events including a monthly recycling drive where they will accept nearly everything from air conditioners to glass bottles.  They can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/siemreapfoodcoop/

Plastic Free Cambodia offers workshops and education and could be an instrumental partner in future projects, https://plasticfreecambodia.com/

As I discover more, I will update this post.


To be continued…

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Tagged: refillnotlandfillcleanbodiasiemreamfoodcoopplasticfreecambodiarehashtrashecosensegreenumbrellaplastic pollutionenvironmentworldmonumentsfundcambodiasiemreapecotourismtourismplasticjohnmelvinjohnkmelvinjohn k melvinjohn melvin

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26th November 2016

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Water is Life, Day 9

(day 9 of a month residency with World Monument Fund)

My time overlapped with the Bon Om Touk (water festival) in Cambodia, a festival that marks the reversal of flow of the Tonle Sap river, the end of the rainy season, and the beginning of the dry season.  WMF had insisted that it would be better to arrive in Siem Reap before the water festival as it would give me time to adjust to Siem Reap as well as to see the festival itself.  It proved invaluable information as my perspective of plastic pollution was informed astronomically in terms of local culture and practice.  

 The entire country celebrates in a 3-day festival that is practically around the clock music, merchants, and miles of every imaginable food.  Here in Siem Reap, the entire province comes into the city to celebrate and the population tripled.  It felt like a week!  Wall to wall people.  As a foreigner there are few times in this interconnected world where traveling yields those moments where you truly lose yourself in the crowd.  At the water festival, it was this and all of this. The energy was inescapable, the very pavement pulsed with the energy and the celebration of life.  For days the streets were jammed with people. Whole streets were closed off along the river, Cambodian traffic, which is quite legendary, was intensified as numerous diversions made all of us feel as we circled the city, that we were actually turning the earth.  

 There were boat races on the river, spontaneous dance marathons in the middle of the road, demonstrations of culture abounded, karoke grandstands, glamrock performances, traditional dance performances, and everything to eat from scorpions to frog, from beef to snail, there was no want.

 And all types of music from every corner of the city competing against each other.  

 Siem Reap is the tourist town adjacent to the Angkor Archaeological park and suffice it say has built a reputation for tourists unwinding after seeing the temples.  Why this pattern has developed, its not my place to judge or guess, but the noise and party vibe of Pub Street is a spectacle to say the least.  Add to this mix Bon Om Touk and the intensity goes to outer space.  On a whim, after a long day of wandering the streets of Siem Reap, a friend and I opted for a massage.  It was the most bizarre experience, why we chose a location adjacent to Pub Street towards the evening, I honestly don’t know.  As soon as our massage started, the music from 20 bars competed for the loudest. I’m not sure if it was the massage or the pounding bass that relaxed us, if either did at all.  

 Dancing in the street along Pub Street and dancing in the street along Bon Om Touk was the course for the weekend.  It was a celebration.  Everyone was mixed together regardless of where one went in the city. Perhaps it was for the festival, perhaps it was to escape from the recent news from the American election, suffice it to say, for me it was an amazing experience.

By the end of the festival, it was obvious that everyone had partied their hearts out.  On Sunday, my friend had yet to see the temples, and as there were two of us, it seemed best to hire a tuk tuk.  We went with the same tuk tuk that had been ferrying us back and forth to our lodging all weekend.  About an hour into Yan driving us around to the temple locations, it was obvious that he was completely exhausted.  Through broken English we found that Yan hadn’t gone home in days, and had been working day and night, delivering goods and tourists all over the city, as the festival weekend was too much opportunity to pass up.  He refused to back off the plan, we were going to spend the day.  So we did.  By the end, after sunset, and the last temple that was more than any of us could really absorb, 3 or 4 per day is average, we had done 6.  My friend slept on my lap, as we coursed back through snarled traffic, the festival was closing, and villagers and vendors from outside the city were packing up their stalls, it took us an hour to travel what would normally be 15 minutes.  The day was full and done.

 Back to work the next day, my friend was off to Laos, and I was to begin my presentation for the WMF staff after having complied research over the last week.  

To be continued…

 

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Tagged: siemreapwaterfestivalbon om toukcambodiaworldmonumentsfundjohnmelvinjohnkmelvinjohn k melvinjohn melvin

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25th November 2016

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Old and new #technology #sculpture #artlife #phnombakheng #angkorwat #worldmonumentsfund #conservation (at ភ្នំបាក់ខែង Bakheng Mountain)

Old and new #technology #sculpture #artlife #phnombakheng #angkorwat #worldmonumentsfund #conservation (at ភ្នំបាក់ខែង Bakheng Mountain)

Tagged: artlifeworldmonumentsfundtechnologyconservationphnombakhengangkorwatsculpture

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25th November 2016

Photo with 1 note

One stone at a time. #cambodia #angkorwat #phnombakheng #siemreap #art #conservation #restoration #worldmonumentfund (at ភ្នំបាក់ខែង Bakheng Mountain)

One stone at a time. #cambodia #angkorwat #phnombakheng #siemreap #art #conservation #restoration #worldmonumentfund (at ភ្នំបាក់ខែង Bakheng Mountain)

Tagged: artangkorwatcambodiaconservationphnombakhengsiemreaprestorationworldmonumentsfund

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25th November 2016

Photo with 1 note

Massive #jigsaw #puzzle #artlife #restoration #conservation #art #angkorwat #phnombakheng #cambodia #siemreap

Massive #jigsaw #puzzle #artlife #restoration #conservation #art #angkorwat #phnombakheng #cambodia #siemreap

Tagged: artlifeartangkorwatpuzzlejigsawcambodiaconservationphnombakhengsiemreaprestorationworldmonumentsfund

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24th November 2016

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Plastic Cambodia

A month residency with the World Monument Fund 

I admit, I knew nothing of the World Monument Fund, before they invited me to stay with them. They are an international organisation with many different projects; here in Cambodia, their current mission is restoring and conserving a few temples at the Angkor complex near Siem Reap.  The entire complex is a world heritage site managed by APSARA.  Many countries and NGO’s are lending all that they can to preserve this monumental complex of 10th - 12th century old temples for future generations.  WMF was my host, my guide, and my inspiration for many projects while in residence.  I am humbly and forever grateful to them to have had so much time with the Angkor complex as well as Cambodian culture. 

Through our initial conversations, it was proposed, that given my expertise in upcycling materials and other environmental concerns that perhaps there was something I could lend to their efforts. 

On arrival at WMF, I went with the management team to two sites they’re working at in Angkor, Phnom BakHeng and Preah Khan, to witness the work of restoration.   Phnom Bakheng is a temple at Angkor completed around 900 CE.  Sited on a small mountain to the northwest of Angkor Wat close to the south gate of Angkor Thom, it is a massive structure.  The temple is completely site specific in many ways; when built, they stripped the landscape down to the bare bedrock that made the inner structure of the mountain.  For this reason among many other historical reasons it is hugely significant that it be restored.  Its history is well documented and I will not go into detail, but the reader can find a primer here

The WMF team along with APSARA and guidance from UNESCO experts had   decided to remove section by section of the pavers on each level of the pyramid and place a PVC layer between the sandstone and laterite. The principal flaw with the temple was irrigation, the temple built of sandstone on top of a rough carved laterite armature that then rests on the mountain bedrock itself. Centuries of water erosion had caused the stones to slip and fall to the ground below.   The theory being that the PVC sheet would channel the water off the pyramid rather than down through the cracks which caused the problem in the first place.  Further, the PVC, once completely covered by the sandstone pavers would never degrade, and is a material that can be relatively easily replaced without damage to the temple.  This entire process is also being documented in minute detail using CAD software piloted by a very skilled technician.  

I learned restoration from Al Farrow and the museums he worked with, as well as several years I spent independently working with museums in California and Washington.  This is always the edict, whatever is to be done, must be able to be undone, and if it can’t then it should not be done at all.   The difference with Phnom Bakheng is the scale, imagine rebuilding the Notre Dame Cathedral from a pile of rubble and you have a sense of the work that WMF has undertaken since 2004.  

It was humbling as an environmentalist to be asked about the risks of PVC used in such a manner.  I am generally against plastic particularly on the individual consumer level, however, at an industrial level, the merits of plastic use, sometimes, outweigh the negatives.  Any organic material would not survive the rigors of tropical exposure, nor would it be economically logical as it would need to be replaced quite frequently, effectively putting the site in a constant state of reconstruction.  In fact, putting the plastic into use in a semi-permanent application such as this water barrier, is more than ideal, its perfect. I cited the new California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco a LEED certified building with PEX plastic embedded in the concrete for radiant heating.  The most perfect application of a material that will never biodegrade.

It was an amazing first day with the WMF, and I will write more soon about subsequent experiences.

To be continued…

Tagged: recyclingpollutionenvironmentecologycambodiasoutheastasiasiemreapphnombakhengangkorwatsustainabilityconservationrestorationarcheaologyworldmonumentsfund

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