BATTLE SPONGE: Will you sit under the banana tree with me and think about what we've done?

Been trying to work out some installation designs, and then decide how I might want them to be participatory and immersive, and then wondering whether they will end up being performance art. Then I was thinking...performance art can have different aims:

1. Open-ended participatory; user led. Who knows what the audience will do or deduce.

2. Pre-ordained, instructed participation; with a view to telling a specific story or creating a specific perception or message.

I'm pretty much going for the second one - I want people to receive a certain message (about environmental stewardship and not being passive), but on a personal level and in the context of their own lives.

I've been collecting rubbish, of course... and making a start on trying out an installation i'm designing which is about rituals of fantasy, and mindful engagement with your fantasies vs. mindless complacency that can easily occur in our downtime and leisure time.

And then I began thinking about what making things with rubbish actually looks like.

Materials choice and arrangement choices are often based on aesthetics…

But I find I always like art where the parts broken down and you can see different raw elements and materials, and joins and breaks in the piece.

I also prefer to make things myself (tables etc) and I can’t do this from scratch, it must be waste stuff. So – this means making installations from deconstructed human objects, and re-building or reusing them. I want art to convey a meaning, with elements of awe, but show a process that any viewer can understand; that they could use themselves to make their own visual messages. E.g anyone can pick things out of a skip and that's the great thing!

It’s especially important that children and teenagers feel enchanted.

I showed my website to Kelsey and Remi, the two girls I look after who are five and six, and Kelsey was amazed and so excited (I got four smiley faces!) and kept saying 'fantastic'! So that's great - i'm communicating with one part of my target audience! I think the colours and bold text and pictorial and character pieces work there.