One person’s trash is another’s treasure, right? That’s the case for the ingeniously inventive artists celebrated by the Bower Reuse and Repair Centres. After a spell at the Parramatta outpost, their second annual Art from Trash exhibition, promoting creative sustainability, moves into their woodworks at Redfern’s 107 Projects spot from October 16.
Each of the more than 70 artworks from 30 creative brains was crafted from the sort of everyday junk piling up in landfill. You’ll be able to check out ‘Message on a Bottle’ by Julia Strykowski, aka PluckFastic, a series of two-litre milk bottles adorned with plastic toys like My Little Ponies and arrayed in a coloured chain not unlike a rainbow.
She took home the $500 Judges' Award prize for her efforts. “There were a lot of different approaches, but all of the exhibiting artists showed a strong commitment to sustainability,” judge Grace Kingston says. “But when we looked up and saw Julia Strykowski’s ‘Message on a Bottle’, we both thought, ‘this is it’.”
For Strykowski’s part, she urges folks to check out the show and to do what they can to help out the planet. “So many amazing works from other amazing reuse artists. If you recognise any object in my work, even one, then you probably helped create this work. Why not consider reducing one-use plastic from your life, start one little piece at a time? It’s never too late, and not so hard once you start your journey.”
Elsewhere in the exhibition you can marvel at Annette Innis’ recreation of the Sydney Opera House using empty pens, broken rulers and pencil stubs, or the Bowerbird Herd's magpie made from cable ties, bicycle brakes, medical gowns and corflute signage. We also love blind artist Luke Abdallah’s beautifully swirling, ocean-like work ‘Studio Detritus #2’. There’s also an adorable Ned Kelly on horseback made by Birgit Heinemann out of scraps of leather, metal, ribbon and wood.
If you can’t pop along, you can check out Art from Trash online, with many of the artworks up for sale, and you can vote for your fave, too. Because this old rubbish really is art, darling.
While you're in the hood, check out this ace Hiroshi Nagai retrospective.
