Summer 2016 What have we been up to??

LitterARTI has been busy with loads of different workshops and events over the Summer, here are a few pictures to show you what we have been up to.

Our next event is with Cirque Bijou at the Balloon Fiesta – 13 and 14 August 2016 celebrating recycling with scrap musical sculptures. They are amazing! Hope to see you there!

M32 Underpass and Lower Eastville Community engagement event with the closure of the M32 in June 2016.

LitterARTI supported Sustrans and Ikea with the Cycle Path clean up Community project. Sculpture made by Eduardo Allen and the artwork by Tom Deams.

LitterARTI supported Sustrans and Ikea with the Cycle Path clean up Community project. Mural with the local schools Maypark and Glenfrome Primaries.

Milkbottle Maskmaking workshops at the Vench with Groundworks South

Coming out…

Close Up of A chandelier made of tampons, entitled "The Bride" and created by Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos. Courtesy of http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/06/tampon-taboo/394634/

Close Up of A chandelier made of tampons, entitled “The Bride” and created by Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos. Courtesy of www.theatlantic.com

No More Taboo – a non-profit social Enterprise which sells sustainable sanitary products – with the proceeds going to supporting women finding it difficult to manage their periods, like homeless women in Bristol as well as women in many developing countries where periods are a taboo in their societies. Founder Chloe Tingle, a fellow participant of School for Social Entrepreneurs was inspired by seeing the prejudice and misunderstanding women faced around menstruation during her travels. She is currently busy establishing a partner relationship in order to best support and empower women in Nepal, whether it be products, education, toilet and bathing facilities, or access to clean water.

She is currently running a crowdfunding campaign – do support her if you can!

A big deal about our usage of sanitary products is the wasteful effects. And I have to admit, even myself, the founder of LitterARTI and pretty waste aware… has taken a while to take the step to buy products which are sustainable – which in your head – of course you know it is the right thing – but emotionally you are blocked. Somehow you can’t move forward into action. What was missing was for me to acknowledge my own taboo. The shame, fear and gosh endless embarrassing memories still crystal clear in my mind. I won’t lay myself bare… and spare you the details. There is a place and a space for that at the Period Party coming up this Saturday, 28th May in Bristol. But by avoiding these – I was physically held back from making the right choices with regards to what I consciously knew I wanted to do.

I see a lot of parallels between this campaign and our own acceptance of our shameful past. Our denial of what has been wrong before, not being able to accept climate change, and importantly not being able to act. We also need safe spaces to talk about this. We need to acknowledge our part in it, and then only will we be able to act. I do think what is holding us back is in so many cases an un-acknowledged sense of despair, shame, guilt! oh guilt is a great one. These emotions do not allow for flow. These emotions do not allow for creativity, for compassion, love, they keep us in bondage.

One thing I think that we tend to forget as campaigners for the green movement – we also had to wake up from our old ways. We had to get to a point where we realised something was wrong. We had to acknowledge the emotions and feelings and fears that came with that and made a choice to make a commitment to change. From then on you are different. You have moved out of the old ways, you are reborn. We all come from within this system and honestly Britain has the largest footprint of them all – we started the Industrial Revolution. This is our problem. And we need to fix it.

To finish off I would like to say: Similar to the Greeny culture around sustainable sanitary products for women – a friend of mine felt rather excluded by her fellow city farm dwellers for not using the mooncup! The same way – accessing the issues around sustainability is still greenwashed – and this is so much part of the reason why progress around acceptance and take up and mobilisation by the public around environmental issues is so damn slow.

Also the fortunate position we are in to be able to work in this field. How grateful am I, that I can spend my energy on understanding and communicating and exploring new solutions to these challenges we are facing. Even though making a living as a heart as a passion driven social entrepreneur, is challenging financially and emotionally. I am not impoverished.

But I know I have some back up, be it a friend, family member, a credit card, or the fallback into my old career in the digital sector, an education, a history and memory of having had a regular income, nice clothes, all that stuff. I needed to have had some first, before I could say no more. I needed to taste the cake, to devour the cake when I could, before I could make a decision that the cake is not really what I needed. I was actually starved by eating the cake. Yet. Our society is still telling us to eat the cake and in honesty, I can not say to someone who has seen others enjoy this cake, who is also striving for this cake to not have it, whether it be someone from the developing world, or someone from a deprived area of Bristol. They need to have the right to taste it first, the freedom to have a bite of the capitalist dream which is rammed down our throats by popular media and the lot.

And that is what I am working towards. Being part of this movement where we are working towards an alternative. Towards equality.

LitterARTI – Under the Plastic Ocean at the Harbour Festival – 18-19 July

This coming weekend LitterARTI will be at the Harbour Festival – joining Cirque Bijou in the Kids area together with performance group – Bocadalupa and the Cardboard Club.

Over five trillion pieces of plastic are floating in our seas. Imagine a world where the sea-creatures adapted to this new awry environment. Come and join us for creative workshops and fun under this weirdly wonderful plastic ocean.

We will be making instruments and sculptures and explore ways to reduce our use of plastics and look at ways collectively to save our oceans.

We will be making instruments and sculptures and explore ways to reduce our use of plastics and look at ways collectively to save our oceans. We will also be displaying artworks created by the Bannerman Road Primary School in Easton together with Artist, Amy Peck, as well as a sculpture co-created with kids in Lawrence Weston with LitterARTI and Artist Pete Margerum supported by BYCA and Bristol City Council. We will also be displaying wonderful artworks created by Bridget Ely, Fiona Hobson,Tracy Graham, Joel Mark Calvert and Eduardo Allen, and Phipholle.

The Friday eve also sees the launch of the life size Blue Whale by Codsteaks and Ape Project supported by Bristol Green Capital and the Arts Council in Millenium Square which will be on display during the Summer. This is also to bring awareness to the problem of plastics floating in our oceans.

See the pictures below form our previous event at the Backwell Festival the past weekend. We had so much fun with all the families and the kids were so creative!

Litterarti workshops at the Backwell Festival 2015.

LitterARTI workshops at the Backwell Festival 2015

LitterARTI Tackling Chewing Gum issues with Broadmead Bid and Gumdrop

Bin your gum! Bristol Shopping Quarter tackles the sticky issue of chewing gum.

The Broadmead BID team is launching a new campaign to educate and inspire the people of Bristol to dispose of their gum responsibly through recycling.

Partnering with Gumdrop, an organisation which specialises in recycling used chewing gum to make many amazing products from rulers to guitar picks, americano mugs and even wellington boots! and LitterARTI, a Bristol based Arts Collective, famed for producing works of art from litter, the BID team hopes to address this issue with an innovative campaign which will be launched on 9th April at The Podium in Broadmead, between 11am – 3pm, and continue until the end of July. The project is supported by Bristol City Council and Bristol European Green Capital 2015.

At the launch event and at two further events, on Saturday 9th May and Saturday 20th June shoppers who use chewing gum will be offered a ‘Gumdrop’ – a small pink key ring container, made with recycled chewing gum, in which they will be asked to place their used gum. Once full – each Gumdrop takes up to 25 pieces of gum – they will be asked to deposit their Gumdrop into one of four specially-branded chewing gum recycling points at The Podium, in the centre of Broadmead.

The Gumdrops will be collected throughout the campaign and will be entered into a free prize draw, with the lucky winner receiving a £500 shopping voucher to spend in Bristol Shopping Quarter. The winner will be announced at the final event on Saturday 25th July.

Broadmead retailers have shown their backing for the initiative by agreeing to hold stocks of the Gumdrops in their stores. Replacement Gumdrops can be collected from: Berghaus, Bo-Concept, Co-Lab, Game, Lush, Runners Need & Cycle Surgery, Specsavers, Thomas Cook, Times Past Vintage Sweet Shoppe and The Fragrance Shop.

In order to measure the impact of the campaign, the BID cleansing team has agreed to monitor the number of pieces of chewing gum they remove for a control period before the project launches and then throughout the four month campaign period.

Jo Hawkins, Broadmead BID manager said: “Retailers within the Broadmead BID area pay a levy, part of which goes towards enhanced cleansing including the removal of chewing gum and it is hoped that this project will result in cleaner streets in Broadmead and will save money which can be spent on other things which will benefit all BID businesses. This a great project to be undertaking in the year Bristol is European Green Capital.

While a serious issue is being tackled, the campaign aims to promote the problems associated with the incorrect disposal of chewing gum in a fun, educational way. LitterARTI is curating events which bring together a collaboration of performing and visual artists, who will confront this unsightly issue with the shoppers in Broadmead, through public engagement art.

Annali Grimes from LitterARTI said ” We are delighted to be part of this ground-breaking project, using the arts to address community issues and encourage civic participation. This project with the Broadmead BID is central to our city-wide litter awareness events to take place during 2015. Our partnerships with Bristol European Green Capital 2015 and Bristol City Council allow us to create new contexts for the arts, to educate about the effects of rubbish and promote recycling.”

Anna Bullus from Gumdrop added “We are very excited to be working with the Broadmead BID and LitterARTI to bring this exciting new initiative to Bristol. We hope that the campaign will help inspire chewers to recycle their chewing gum and in turn create a cleaner greener Bristol.”

The campaign will be promoted strongly via social media using the hashtag #bristolgumdrop, through work which LitterARTI carry out with young people, on posters and on a specially created webpage at www.gumdropltd.com/bristolgumdrop

For more information about the Bin Your Gum initiative, or to arrange to attend the launch on 9th April, please contact jo.hawkins@destinationbristol.co.uk

For more information about Gumdrop, contact friends@gumdropltd.com or visit www.gumdropltd.com

For more information about LitterARTI, contact info@litterarti.com or visit: www.litterarti.com

For information about Bristol European Green Capital, visit www.bristol2015.co.uk

For information about The Broadmead BID, visit www.broadmeadbristolbid.co.uk or email jo.hawkins@destinationbristol.co.uk

ARTISTS and PERFORMERS CALL-OUT: Litter – Awareness creative engagement events 2015

During 2015 LitterARTI is tackling litter extensively raising awareness though city wide events, and performances and installations. We are calling artists and performers who are passionate about the issue of “litter” to get in touch with the LitterARTI team.

We have been fortunate to receive funding from Bristol 2015 Green Capital and are working with numerous partners on addressing litter in Bristol in fun and exciting ways. Through this project we use litter-issues as an opportunity to bring all peoples together around issues which affect all of us. And all this through art and creativity. Litter provides an opportunity for communities to actually address an issue, take action on it, while seeing tangible results from it. This in itself is empowering.

Litter is like the irritating, loud little sister – of the sustainability issues family. Always following you around, but not threatening – not on the scale of the impeding energy crisis, water and food shortages, threatening of valuable natural resources and our comfortable lifestyles to only mention a few things… all complex and sometimes very debilitating concepts.

But, by taking care of our little sister, by nurturing her, and importantly, not ignoring her, you realise the importance she has in the family and also let her realise her own value in helping to bring attention to climate change to hard to reach audiences, and enabling and empowering us to do something about it within supportive communities.

ps. note this does not in any way resemble the relationship I have with my own sister. Ed.

Pop-Up Exhibition at Small is…Festival 13/14 September

We had the opportunity to put together an imprompto pop-up exhibition during the Small is… Festival in Bristol, St, George’s Hall over the weekend.

What we learned is how quickly we can put something like this together, and the potential it holds for public spaces, including shopfronts, office spaces and universities for educational or awareness days, talks and conferences on sustainability, waste and recycling.

What art brings to the table in finding solutions towards sustainability is that is inspires curiosity, and then to be curious about something, makes you want to learn more about it, thus opens up a space for education and conversations about waste materials.

Get in touch if you have events coming up, we are happy to come and set up an exhibition to supplement your sustainability message.

Artwork created by: Object…, Fiona Hobson, Thomas Dowdeswell, Fred Plumley, Sadie Few, and Joel Calvert.

LitterARTI at Small is… Festival in St. George’s Hall this weekend, Bristol

a WASTE of SPACE: 25 Artists. 9 Willing Volunteers. Eco-Educators. A Film-Maker.

A WASTEofSPACE is the brainchild of Pete Margerum and Annali Alletha with the vision of having a dedicated space, where traditional “waste” materials can be creatively explored. Where dedicated workshops and education take place within this dedicated environment.

Painting on cardboard by Thomas Dowdeswell

Through this exhibition, we explore this concept as a reality. By working with artists, all exploring “waste-materials” in their work, we question the process of when waste becomes valuable or turns into resources. As can be seen also in the work of exhibiting artist Thomas Dowdeswell, an established painter, whom clearly illustrates how the impulse to create, does not care about the surfaces it gets exposed to. It is the ultimate illustration of adding value to seemingly worthless objects, when necessity calls for it. These works were created when he could not afford a canvas, but does it detract from the value of the art work? From the purity of expression?

The current trend of waste being a subject matter to many artists, and becoming increasingly popular as representations in gallery spaces, ie. the recent Installation of Phyllida Barlow in the Tate Gallery in London. I call it a trend, but I am a firm believer of artists being able to represent the unseen, hidden sub-conscious of culture. They say if you want to see what a culture is like, look at the art which gets produced. By bringing this art into the public, and involving and engaging people who do not normally go into galleries, we have the opportunity to alter perceptions around waste.

Phyllida Barlow, Tate Gallery London

Through this exhibition we also seek to bring the “unseen” to the surface. Waste has the quality of out of sight, out of mind. And a big problem with our inability to act on the amount of pollution in our cities, is because it gets tucked away out-of-sight in a landfill site. If we were exposed to the smells and horrors of a landfill site on our doorstep, we would think differently about our wasteful ways. Well, we’re not gonna create a landfill site and pretend it is art. But essentially what we seek to do with this exhibition is allow a space where the individual is confronted to question his / her own relationship with waste.

Fiona Campbell and Pete Margerum creating a tree from exhaust pipes for the litterARTI a WASTEofSPACE Exhibition 5- 9 August. Participants will complete the artwork during workshops which will take place on Wednesday, 5 August 2014.

As the week progresses, the “waste” within the space will accumulate through creative workshops. An ants’ nest of activities! And on the final day of the week, we will be able to see the collective footprint of visitors represented creatively and beautifully. All the workshops are run by established and up-coming artists. Artists from different disciplines are invited to collaborate and new relationships are formed. So often this wonderful work is created in isolation, so what this project also seeks is for collaboration and fresh new ideas to inform current work processes. All these artists are explorers of “new-materials” finding new ways to use and engage with materials in excess in our environments. Only through the sharing of techniques and ideas will this zeitgeist gain momentum. It can almost be likened to have the same excitement as the Industrial Revolution, with the Great Exhibition in Crystal Palace and the Eiffel Tower. But with an added challenge – pre-conceived prejudices about the already existing materials, which adds a psychological angle to it. Then the total devastation involved in the excess of these materials causing death in our oceans, and health hazards to humans with less access to public services, where the waste tends to accumulate.

Sadie Few exploring making creations out of cardboard for the workshop on Thursday, 7 August 2014

Jan Blake busy exploring ideas for the workshop on Thursday, 7 August 2014

During the week other activities include: fancy dress fun litter pick challenges, with outfits provided by Bristol Textile Recyclers. Fancy Dress costumes headed for India and Pakistan, intercepted by litterARTI to engage kids and make litter picking fun! Stencils provided by The Fly, will allow participants to make statements about litter. We need to start changing perceptions about litter-picking in our societies, that it is unacceptable behaviour to drop litter, but also to ignore litter. If we all take the 2 minute Beach Clean challenge in our own neighbourhoods, you will start to create a culture of litter picking champions. Also look at how LITTERATI seeks to encourage cleaning up the streets: By using Instagram, picturing the litter which you then discard in the correct ways. This way a global map is created where litter has been picked. Litter picking needs to become socially acceptable, and people need to start taking responsibility of their wasteful ways. Collectively. Encouraged within communities.

We are also working with Resource Futures during this exhibition, who provides us with the information necessary to educate and inform accurately about the waste materials we are exploring during the exhibition.

All artists involved in this project, are stakeholders of this project as well. Everyone has agreed to work for half their normal rate, which shows the dedication to the project. The artworks exhibited for sale during the exhibition, will allow for 20% of the profits to go towards the litterARTI – Artists – Collective. We are raising funds which will allow for all the workshop artists to get DBS Clearance Certificates, which will allow them to carry this work forward.

The Scraptors. Fiona Campbell. Pete Margerum. Jethro Brice. Tim Floyd. Thomas Dowdeswell. Lee Kirby. Alison Harper. Jan Blake. Louise Block. Bridget Ely. Sarah Jayne Edwards. Seila Fernandez Arconada. Jennifer Blackwood. Fred Plumley. Object… The Fly. Katryn LaMiette. Katharina Nyilas. Olivia Jones. Sadie Few. Fiona Hobson. Phipholle. Annali Alletha. Matt Harris. Ruth Worsley. Morwhenna Woolcock. Domenico Alecci. Aimee McCabe. Alexandra Rowson. Maxine Hughes. Megan Sutcliffe. Beverly Heath. Clare Wood. June Burrough. Joe Hoare.