Everyday Environmentalism

Waste, art, and environmentalism have crossed paths in interesting ways: Artwork has been used to inspire others to reduce waste and be resourceful or recycle. Waste has been used as both an inspiration and a medium for artwork. Reusing waste for artwork is a form of upcycling. Per wikipedia’s definition of upcycling, it the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or a higher environmental value.

Here are a few examples of these trends:

1. My friend Maia, a very talented artist, would occasionally visit a landfill at the edge of San Francisco for inspiration. This specific junkyard has a very scenic view of the water and around the time of frequent visits to it she painted a beautiful triptych of waves.

2. San Francisco’s waste management organization, Recology, has a program called Artist In Residence (AIR) which was created to inspire and educate people about recycling and resource conservation. AIR provides specially selected local artists with studio space, resources, and discarded treasures from its interim dump site before items are sent to landfills or recycling plants. AIR had a reception and showcase on January 22nd and it happens that a friend of a friend, Erik Otto, was the resident artist. I wasn’t able to attend the event but here is Erik’s blog post.

3. In March 2008 I traveled to Berlin to visit one of my best friends from college. One day we visited a place on Oranienburgerstrasse called, “Tacheles”, a salvaged building turned art collective/warehouse. Inside is an open, five-story, graffiti-filled warehouse with exhibits and a funky coffee bar on the top floor as well as a junkyard with junk to art projects on display. This East Berlin building went through many lives and is a good reuse and renovation story. More information about the site can be found here.

Other thoughts:

a. What are the facts and figures regarding air pollution caused by landfills? According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), municipal solid waste landfills are the second-largest human-generated source of methane emissions in the US. From this an estimated 32 million metric tons of carbon equivalent were released to the atmosphere in 2007 alone. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas contributing to climate change. More details can be found here.

b. Are there other cities with similar programs?

I haven’t found anything notable. If anyone else has examples, let me know!

c. Have other artists incorporated waste into their works?

I came across a few articles about Trash Artists on the Web Urbanist, a site about “sensational, educational, and inspirational art, design, photography, and visual culture”. Check out these posts about 7 Innovative Artists Who Create Art from Trash: Projected, Recycled and Other Amazing Art and 20 (More) Amazing Works of ‘Garbage Art’: From Pottery Sculpture Parks to Giant Newspaper Portraits.

I also stumbled upon an article in the NY Daily News called Salvation from the trash to heap: Brooklyn artists to the rescue in a fix. It discusses a Brooklyn, New York collaborative called Fixers Collective. This group of artists and enthusiasts meet on Thursday nights to help one another creatively repair or repurpose junk.

Filed under: Waste on February 26th, 2010