SALLY Kettle is taking

recycling to new levels by

spinning a dress with lint from washing machines and human hair.

Three days a week she sets up a workshop in the corner of her local laundrette and sets to work

collecting left over fluff and cloth from the bottom of washing machines and tumble-dryers.

She then uses a collection of human hair, which she has gathered during the last few months, to sew the remnants together and hopes to complete a dress before the end of the project next month.

Tentative

Sally, a theatre and visual practice student at Brighton University, is

completing the project at Kim's

Laundrette, in Kemp Town, as part of her final year degree.

She said: "Although the owner of the laundrette was quite tentative, he is now really behind me and comes in a lot to see how I'm doing.

"I first thought of the idea when I came in to use the laundrette. I was interested in how things were washed and dried. It is a form of recycling so we can use our clothes again.

"The idea of the dress is to recycle things we don't normally recycle, like hair and skin and fluff.

"It is also a performance. I'm looking at what makes a performance and how people react to things when they don't know if you are just eccentric or if you are an actress."

The lint is little more than dust when it comes out of the back of the tumble-

dryers and washing machines and would just fall apart if sewn.

To make use of it, Sally pulps the lint and then uses starch to hold it together.

She is making a dress which will cover most of her body.

Once it has been sewn she will mould it to her body and eventually hopes to have it exhibited in an art gallery.

Sally, 23, said: "A lot of people have come in to the laundrette and think I actually work there and have asked me to make alterations to their clothes, which I think is great.

Community

"I have had a wonderful reaction from most of the other customers. One woman gave me a ponytail of hair so that I didn't have to keep pulling it out of my own head to do the sewing."

Spending such a lot of time in her local laundrette has also given Sally, who lives in Kemp Town, an insight into her community.

She said: "I have been really surprised how generous most people are and how they are willing to do anything for someone they don't know."

However not all the customers have welcomed Sally. She said: "Some people have been quite aggressive and rude as if I have invaded their space by being in the laundrette while they are doing their washing."

Sally spent a week sitting in the window of Waterstones book shop in North Street, Brighton, brushing her hair and cutting her toe nails earlier this year as part of the same performance.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.