2001, Blue Mountains of Australia
Baglady uses the occasion of her 590 millionth birthday to end months of fevered rumour in the fashion world. “This decade I’ll mostly be wearing plastic bags”, she announces, “to highlight a global scandal we can stop. Help me rid the planet of plastic bags and rubbish!”
About Shirley
Shirley Lewis has cared about the environment all her life.
On graduating from Trinity College, Dublin (BA Hons, English 1967) she trained as a journalist in Northern England. Her work experience includes provincial weeklies and national dailies in both the UK and Australia, magazines and in-house journals, news radio reporting and presenting for the BBC and Australian Broadcasting Corporation, as well as TV research, reporting and interviewing.
Her preferred topics, then as now, have been health, social justice, environment and global issues. She gave up full-time news journalism because of its incessant focus on bad news, and has spent her time seeking ways to promote the good. Her writing is known for its humour and honesty.
She’s a published novelist: Notes on My Madness (1990; Australian Feminist Favourite 1991); prizewinning poet: Mootwingee (Leonard Teale Spoken Word Award 1995); and playwright: Beatification (1996, Sydney); Ceasefire (1997, Sydney, Galway).
She trained as an acupuncturist in Sydney and China, and carried out a research project for the Mountains Women’s Health Centre. She practiced acupuncture and homeopathy in the Blue Mountains, Australia for 20 years before returning to Ireland in 2001.
Her film work began in 2000, when her first film, To Be Continued, was requested by members of the Dharrug, Gundungurra and Anmatyerra tribes, and was shown around Australia in the Wild Spaces Film Festival. Other films on the theme of reconciliation followed.
On her last year in Australia, Shirley initiated Australia’s first National Plastic Bag Awareness Week. Federal government funded, sponsored by the two major supermarket chains, Coles and Woolworths and the Australian Retailers Association, it was run by Clean Up Australia. Shirley’s character, Baglady, appeared on the scene at this time to launch and promote the Week, in November 2001. This project is ongoing and regarded by Australians as highly successful.
On arrival in Britain and Ireland, Shirley noticed the severe litter problem, both urban and rural, and began filming beauty, rubbish and picking up. Her first Irish film, Picking Up, was commissioned by Ballymena Borough Council, and it (and Baglady) launched Ballymena’s first Environment Week, 2003, when school and community groups picked up 8 tonnes of litter. The week was repeated in 2004, with a new film, In the Bin, and an additional event, the NEEDabag? project, which Shirley hopes to expand throughout Northern Ireland and Britain.
Shirley has considerable experience as a teacher and workshop facilitator, working with children and adults in Australia, Ireland and Croatia. She draws on this for her unique work on topics ranging from rubbish to sustainable living, in education, business, community, politics, media and government at all levels.
