NEWSLETTER Artcycling project is becoming even more exciting than we expected! The artists involved in the workshops are really looking forward to achieve the final products. We are already collecting discarded items and materials and they are trying to imagine in which new object full of life they are going to become. The creative process, as life itself, is always full of highs and downs, so going deeply into Artcycling can be seen like going deeply into our own life, into our own vital project.
Welcome to ARTCYCLING! AN OVERVIEW OF THE ARTCYCLING GUIDE This guide has been made by the Danish experts of Cultura21 and wants to be a useful tool to assist the artists, guides, teachers and supporters involved in Artcycling in understanding and practicing the art-cycling process. This document gives ideas to creatively reuse waste, combining it with craftsmanship and to develop new sites and small enterprises to offer some of these creations. For the artcyclers nothing is waste and nothing is impossible, an excellent leitmotiv for artists but also for anyone’s life. The guide clarifies the differences between recycling and upcycling and gives practical examples that can inspire you. It also includes the eight steps in the creative process, very helpful to get the best of your creativity and not to give up when creating art. Some examples of materials that can be used in the recycling and upcycling process for artistic creations are given.
“As artists and designers, we create mindsets. With our creations, we can show that sustainability is possible – and beautiful” Finally, the Artcycling guide proposes a reflection about how each artist defines his/ her work and thus be able to show it to the rest of the world in a clear way. The Artcycling guide is available for free in our website:
http://www.artcycling.org/
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
NEWSLETTER II - March 2016
AN ACCOUNT ON THE COLLECTION OF DISCARDED ITEMS FOR OUR ARTCYCLING ACTIVITY In INTRAS, we have thousands of ideas for upcycled products, but, unfortunately, only few of them will be selected to be done during our workshops. So far, we have been collecting newspapers to do paper mache (to create different artistic figurines), old jeans to make several creations, old jerseys to make puffs, pallets to make different furniture and urban gardens, bottle of sodas to make lamps, etc. We are in contact with a former draper that is providing us with old fabrics, very useful to make thousands of different products. But we still have a lot of work to do, as we have to design the products and think in the best way to do them. We are meeting with local craftspeople so maybe we will include other materials in the future once we learn different artistic techniques.
Some creation within the INTRAS workshops
NEWSLETTER II - March 2016
Retextil workshops
We, the Hungarian group have found many really different craftspeople from around the neighborhood of PĂŠcs and the country. All these different workshops and craftmenships needed all kind of materials. We collected waste bicycle rubber, plastic bottles, wasted residual leather and all kinds of fabric and textiles. Our idea is to learn many new techniques and turn them somehow into a part of our daily job in the Retextil House. For this practice the main material we use is textile waste, this will be our main material in the project, too. But during the learning process we would like to meet and work with as many different materials as possible.
NEWSLETTER II - March 2016
At Cultura21, we started several years ago exploring the urban areas around us, which naturally leads to see a lot of the waste around. We live in a city where a great deal of the waste is being collected, sorted, distributed, or incinerated to make energy. What you find on the streets or in the recycling stations are things that either call for repair café initiatives (old coffee machines, discarded TV sets, furniture, etc). But what drew our attention, and will be part of the work that we would like to do with our artcyclers as soon as possible, are the books. In all recycling stations, there are thousands of old beautiful books. When you open them up, you can use the covers to make installations, to use for new books, to make unfolding maps that live inside the cover, or even to make sculptures or jewelry. Through our partners at the “Golddiggers” station where art is being made from waste already, we will discover a lot of other materials. And through some of the other partners, we are going to learn more about how to work with creating new, biodegradable and biologically fabricated materials, from e.g. seaweed or funghi. Combining this with original creation such as maps, and with the beauty of the old books, may lead to a new line of creations.
NEWSLETTER II - March 2016
Pacificstream creative space
So Far, the Artcycling UK journey has been a little slow off the ground, as although Pacific Stream has office space, it does not have a studio space for storage and making. So this has been our challenge...to find an affordable workspace in Liverpool that we can start to collect materials in and get making!!! We have looked at several venues, and hope to be taking on part of a disused warehouse space, which will be run by another local creative collective called ‘90 Squared’. At present the warehouse is empty, so it leaves us with a blank canvas as to what we would like to create hopefully
Furniture using a tyre made by Pacificstream
We are really excited about it as it could help us to expand our creative community. Here is a picture of the space which also has some potential as a showcase space too. So whilst we have been looking for space, we have had several meetings different places, one of them being at Tracy, one of our artists’ lovely home which is made out of driftwood and other up cycled and eco building materials... She even has a driftwood kitchen!!! Pacificstream’s ideas so far combine a number of concepts, which include the use of sustainably sourced greenwood for crafting furniture legs, to using old tyres and textiles and upholster them into funky furniture. We are also organising some print workshops which will hopefully allow us to explore the use of recycled paints and various different ‘found surfaces’ to work on...
NEWSLETTER II - March 2016
CULTURA 21 NORDIC Cultura21 Nordic is the Nordic-Baltic branch of the international network Cultura21. The network connects people working with cultural aspects of sustainable development, and sustainability issues in culture. Examples are culture-based work for urban life conditions; workshops and courses in sustainable entrepreneurship based on design thinking methods; or self-initiated projects such as ‘Eco Island’ on how we might rethink the way we relate to sites, materials, habitats, and relations, in Copenhagen, Gdansk or other places. Cultura21 Nordic is based in Copenhagen and registered as an association of professionals. The members of Cultura21 in Copenhagen are artists, cultural professionals such as architects, philosophers, writers, photographers, and many kinds of project makers and cultural intermediaries. They are engaged in furthering sustainable development through cultural approaches and come together in the network for the purpose of learning, becoming more visible, and developing projects together. Baltic Sea Region – culture and sustainability Over the past couple of years, Cultura21 has been engaged in a number of projects involving partners such as the Nordic Council of Ministers and the EU Baltic Sea Region Strategy. This has involved a mapping and network development project in 2012-14, leading to the Culturability platform. It has also involved supporting the Nordic Council of Ministers in developing their strategies and tools for culture and sustainability, leading a.o. to the collaborative platform, Gro. We have also been engaged in counselling and sparring projects from the whole region, in collaboration with Ars Baltica and the German-Polish presidency of EU’s Baltic Sea Region Strategy Policy Area Culture.
NEWSLETTER II - March 2016
Eco Island – urban cultural sensitivity In 2013, we developed the concept of Eco Island. This develops on the idea of working with islands in urban contexts through a very ‘pedestrian’ and participatory method. Through Eco Island, we seek to strengthen the sense of siteness and stuffness in local communities, and bring together very different types of agents. Eco Island was realized in Copenhagen in 2014 as part of the European Green Capital year (Sharing Copenhagen); then continued in Gdansk in 2015 in collaboration with the Baltic Sea Cultural Centre (as part of Baltic House Lab). 2016 will be a year of reflection, writing, and preparing. Social U – and Education for Life-enhancing Entrepreneurship Social U is an educational method developed by Cultura21 and partners from FFSI, starting in 2012 with unemployed creative potential entrepreneurs; moving on to asylum seekers with the Red Cross in 2013-15; and practiced today through courses for long-term unemployed entrepreneurs in Copenhagen. The concept is based on combining method awareness around idea and concept development, and a strong focus on action-learning and prototyping. The aim is to keep developing on the tools and methods, in open source ways, and in collaboration with the members of Cultura21 and other partners. Our ambitions within teaching, coaching, and initiating networks, is an important factor in our participation in the Artcycling project. Although we are not normally actively engaged in producing artistic artefacts, the projects allows us to build stronger ties both to engaged participants and to producing artists that engage with upcycling and recycling. We also hope to be able to extend the bonds and networks of the project participants, into our international networks outside Europe.
In the next issue… … Coordination meeting in Copenhagen. … Meetings with local craftspeople. … Knowing Pacificstream.
We will come back in June! For further information, please contact us via e-mail: proyectos2@intras.es You can find us on Facebook as well: https://www.facebook.com/Artcycling