British artist’s giant sculpture comes bear-ing environmental message
Christmas display by Robert Bradford features artwork made from recycled materials
A giant teddy bear made by a British artist out of recycled material is on display in a Kwun Tong shopping centre to promote protecting the environment.
The 12-foot bear, made of 20,000 flowers and toys and sitting on an equally massive armchair, is the centrepiece of Robert Bradford’s exhibition.
“When you’re a small child, the bears look huge. Adults will get the same feeling when they look at this,” the 70-year-old artist said.
Hong Kong generates the largest amount of domestic waste in the region, at 1.36kg per capita a day, ahead of 1kg in Taipei, 0.95kg in Seoul and 0.77kg in Tokyo, according to local authorities.
Bradford’s exhibition shows that discarded products can have a second life.
The use of “cheap, ordinary things” as sculpture material is Bradford’s way of “elevating” those items into something “more beautiful, more valuable or more important”.