The women, including Lucy Wambui, featured in a video and report on Elmendorp’s site, collect plastic bags from the dump and weave them into marketable goods. In an area of the world ravaged by poverty, HIV, domestic abuse and drug addiction, these women are bettering their lives and educating the next generation on the income they earn selling recycled plastic. Lucy, for example, pays her grandson’s school fees with part of her income.

I find this piece particularly compelling because I have been to Nakuru, spent the night in the national park for which the area is famed and even spent a night in town without ever crossing paths with a community of trashpickers. Elmendorp’s shot of the dump site with flamingo lake in the background beautifully illustrates the contrast between the two worlds. It reminds me of this photo, which I shared here in 2010, taken from the shore of the same lake.

Lake Nakuru

How different the planet appears from the other side of the looking glass.

Kaz Oshiro's Dumpster (Flesh with Turquoise Swoosh) 2011

The photo appeared in the fabulous Walker Art Center‘s monthly magazine as part of a feature on a new show called Lifelike. According to the Walker website, “Lifelike invites a close examination of artworks based on commonplace objects and situations, which are startlingly realistic, often playful, and sometimes surreal.”

Check out an interview with the painter/sculptor here. My favorite bit is Oshiro discussing his choice of media:

If you know the construction of a painting, you have a wood frame and you stretch canvas over it. So that structure is kind of important, and you can’t really go beyond that. The objects I’m making are boxes. If you see the conventional painting frame, it’s kind of thin. But in my case, wood stretcher bars become a box and then I stretch canvas over it.

I’ve been making trash bins and dumpsters for awhile. Sometimes I’m not sure why. Somehow I’m really attracted to it. You see dumpsters everywhere in the United States on the street. I drive around town. In LA, I have to drive everywhere. Somehow I always see things on the street, and everything’s coming from my memory.

Why I paint them? First of all, I like the shape of the metal big box. You see all kinds of marks on it. The [form of the] dumpster allows me to paint the way abstract painters do. That’s one of the things I like about painting dumpsters. To me, it’s existing between representation and abstract painting.

Dumpster camera

It’s a twist on decorating a dumpster, rather than dressing it up, they transformed waste receptacles into beauty-making machines.

Photo taken by dumpster

Cathedral of Junk

Looks like a magical place and yet another reason I need to get to Austin.

My friend, Myra, sent me photos of a show she spotted while attending a conference this weekend at Hampshire College. And of course, this being the future, online video tells the story best.

Click here to find out more about this innovative work reimagining dumpstered skateboards, discarded plastic water bottles and countless other materials we sometimes think of as waste. I wish I’d taken a Design, Art and Technology class as an undergrad!

Thanks for the tip, Myra!

Thanks for the tip, Elizabeth!

Chandelier in Toronto, 2009

I have to say I get MANY, MANY Earth Day pitch emails, usually covering general green topics not directly linked to trash and most pimping  a for-profit product. So I was extra thrilled to get word that  a public art project I have admired from afar. It goes up tomorrow, here’s what the press release has to say about the installation, which opens tomorrow (I added the links):

A 21-foot tall sculpture in the form of a chandelier made of recycled plastic containers will hang above the World Financial Center Winter Garden’s famed marble staircase for an entire month starting on April 15th. 

From April 15^th through May 11^th, visitors to the ten-story glass-vaulted atrium will be able to look up and see artist Katharine Harvey‘s stunning Chandelier, a 21-foot tall and 15-foot wide sculpture consisting of thousands of used plastic containers laboriously washed and strung together. The artist has transformed water bottles, sandwich trays, muffin tins, salad boxes, egg cartons, and more into a symbol of luxury and opulence while simultaneously commenting on the glut of plastic in consumer society.

A resident of Toronto, Canada, Katharine Harvey, represented by Nicholas Metivier Gallery, is known for creating sculptural installations that refashion plastic packaging and dollar-store items into startlingly beautiful works of art. Her paintings, light displays, and sculptures have been featured in galleries and public installations throughout the world, including the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, the Vancouver Winter Olympics, Nuit Blanche Festival in Toronto, Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., Le Centre d’Exposition in Baie-St-Paul (Québec), and the Painting Center (New York). Group shows include the Galerie Art Mûr (Québec), Art Gallery of Regina, Saskatchewan, as well as residencies at Ivavvik National Park in the northern Yukon (2006) and The Banff Centre in Alberta (2003).

Photo by Zinkie Aw

She calls the series the “Republic of Pulau Semakau” as each depicts a person holding a wastebasket in front of his or her face. In her words: “The things we throw away tell us so much about who we are.”

This whimsical project hits a chord for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that my own interest in trash began as an interest in my local island landfill.

Know how I found out about Zinkie’s work? The everydaytrash.com Facebook page. You, too, can discover neat new things there. Fan the page, and while you’re at it, fan the Republic of Pulau Semakau page, too.