Waste – Kristen Baumlier

At Camp Pixelache in Helsinki, Finland that I attended last month I met members of Kulturlabor Trial & Error, which is a Berlin-based, non-profit organization that works with crafts, D.I.Y. culture, sustainability, arts and media. The group calls itself a “collective of designers and craftivists, thinkers and doers, artists and project managers” – who implement social and cultural projects. By using media, handicraft and art as tools, the group works mainly in the local community in Berlin, to experience, experiment with and exchange knowledge and skills.

At Camp Pixelache, several members of the group were there with lots of materials on hand that anyone could work with. They also had some of their amazing publications on view. One book is a book called Upcycle it! – A toolkit for creative recycling which gives practical information, information on different materials and interesting articles about upcycling.

Another amazing was the Recycled Creativity Festival 2011 Photobook, which was a handmade book from the Recycled Creativity Festival that was held in Berlin last year. This yearly event celebrates upcycling and recycling – and had music, workshops, yoga, food, film, and lots of cool demos.

At the core of the festival is the idea that, “trash is not waste but the basis to develop our creativity.” One interesting project I learned about that was at the festival was a portable T-shirt project, where any shirt is coated with a light-sensitive pigment. A portable projection setup is used to project the image onto the t-shirt – and voila! A shirt is made. I liked how this was setup on a cart – and could go anywhere.

Trial and Error recently got a space for workshops. Some of the workshops they have coming up include “Make your own 100% upcycled* banner bags” – where you make bags out of old commercial banners. Another project is “Trash of the Month,” where the presenters will check out one specific trash-material and give an upcycling workshop of how to use this material. Past materials were bike pieces (pieces from bicycles), paper, old umbrellas, food (which included dumpster diving, candles, and some other materials.

The group has a mobile workshop wagon which is used to give workshops in public space. The wagon was constructed out of 90% trash, sourced from the local environment

Got some trash that you don’t know what do with? I recommend checking out the Trial and Error website, and check out their books that you can view online.

Image Source:
http://www.trial-error.org/

Links:

http://www.trial-error.org/

http://www.trial-error.org/publications

http://www.recycledcreativity.info/en/home.html

Recoogy San Francisco is a unique Artist in Residence program in San Francisco, CA at the city’s waste management and transfer plant (also known as “the dump.) In this program, artists are given an opportunity to work with discarded materials at the site, receive a stipend, and get access to a studio space at the Recology Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center.

Since it began in 1990, more than 85 professional artists and 20 student artists have done residencies. During their residencies, artists have scavenging privileges, have 24-hour access to the art studio, and participate in some public programs which includes presentations to children and visitors. At the conclusion of their residency, there is a two-day public exhibition and reception for the artists

Artists donate work to Recology, which might include donating a piece for the Sculpture Garden, which is a three-acre site with over 35 sculptures on the site.

The Artist in Residence program has roots in the work of artist Jo Hanson, who came to prominence in the 1970s began a personal practice of sweeping in front of her Lower Haight neighborhood home. She made work with litter, and eventually organizing city-wide street sweeping campaigns and tours of illegal dumping sites in the City. She was eventually invited to visit the San Francisco dump, which led to her presenting the idea of the residency program.

Early artists in residence included sculptors William Wareham and Jim Growden who created large-scale, steel sculptures that today are located in the Recology sculpture garden and gallery. In the 1990s, social practice art forms emerged with Remi Rubel, who collaborated with kids from the Youth in Action Corps to create large-scale bottle cap-covered mosaic mural.

There has been a variety of projects at Recology which include interactive pieces, installations, sculptures, paintings, and photographs. Artist-in-residence Andrew Junge (2005) developed a variety of work at Recology which included his piece, Styrofoam Hummer H1 (low mileage, always garaged), which is a life-size Styrofoam version of a Hummer.

In 2009, during his residency, Bill Basquin collected food scraps and documented fruits and vegetables as they broke down over time. He created a sensory immersion chamber, called Dirt House where visitors could sit in a three by three foot redwood box that contained compost, in order to have an intimate encounter with the composting process.

Suzanne Husky in 2010-2011 while in residence, explored the “back to the land” and living off the grid movements. At Recology, she constructed “Sleeper Cells”—small, house-like tructures that had wheels and could be moved. The pieces were made from wood lath, The two pieces completed during her residency—one a porcupine-shaped structure, the other an abstract, organic form—were both equipped with wheels for easy mobility. They were made from lath and were furnished with the cast-offs of consumer culture.

If you are interested in applying for a residency, or want to know more about the current artist in residence for 2012 you can check out the Recology website or blog.

Images:
Recovered Resource – Recology Blog

Links:

The Recology Artist in Residence Program

Recovered Resource – Recology Blog

Kristen Baumlier

Category: Waste

Kulturlabor Trial & Error – Crafts, D.I.Y. Culture and Sustainability

Recology San Francisco: Artists in Residents at the City Dump