TREAD LIGHTLY

This year the weather for Wellington’s Park(ing) Day was kind, and our parking space became the site for Tread Lightly, a participatory printing experience.

Using old car tyres, we demonstrated the printing process and helped passers-by to make graphic prints from the ‘inked’ rubber treads.

As we worked we initiated discussions about environmentally responsible travel options and ways we can all reduce the impact of our car use when it’s unavoidable. For instance, by simply pumping our car tyres to their correct pressure we achieve:

better fuel consumption
less wear on tyres
fewer micro-plastics going into the environment

As always with Occupation: Artist projects, it’s the interaction with our audience that completes the whole intention and concept.

Inviting people to join us by making their own prints was an exciting development,

with a few highlights really standing out. One lovely man participated in his wheelchair; we inked his tyres and he rolled back and forth across the paper whilst hanging over the side of his chair to watch the work develop.

Then there was the group of kindergarten children having fun printing with tyres almost as big as themselves – they were also very happy to have the black paint washed off their hands at the end though!