Make Art, Not Waste

Cameroon Wed 21-01-2009

Make Art, Not Waste
Mwalimu George Ngwane

Neclaces made out of flip flops by Uniqueco

Environmental artists in Africa are often unconscious of their laudable art waste mission. Art products based on controlled waste (recycled plastic, wrappers and carrier bags) can serve as a formidable template for artistic wealth.

By using different shades of colours of this waste to produce caps, toys, belts, foot gears, bags etc, the environmental artist can create a cultural industry out of an environmental eyesore.

In most African towns, gutters, culverts and trenches have become the journey’s end and disposal site non-biodegradable materials and the urban dwellers only have their noses and eyes to cover as a response to the stench and sight. Yet in one brush, the artist can contribute to environmental sanitation, poverty alleviation and cultural innovation.

A healthy society is not one which produces no waste, but one which recognizes its duty to manage, not ignore its waste.

Creative management
A close look at our towns and country sides reveals how much resourceful thinking is needed to artistically make a living out of recycling and reusing. All it takes is for the Ministries of Environment, Culture as well as local government authorities and corporations to identify their environmental problems and solicit the creative ingenuity of the artist.

While environmental problems in Africa are mostly global in origin, local governments mostly suffer from litter (badly managed or unmanaged waste). The response has been for local government authorities to provide garbage trucks, litter bins and trash cans to dispose of this waste (mostly household). How this waste is further managed is another cause for concern.

Under other skies, municipal councils create council/cooperative farms, transform the waste into manure, and grow food crops which they sell at a minimal cost in specialized councils/cooperative shops. The councils also embark on a “rubbish rebate” (a kilo of tomatoes for a bag of waste).

Another response by local governments is through “closing the loop” (the process of recycled materials manufactured into new products and bought by consumers).

By manufacturing art from waste, the environmental artist is actually closing the loop.

Art waste culture
Virtually all African cities have a problem with drink corks. And if one is to go by our level of beer drinking then the cork waste is a terrible environmental hazard. Yet it is possible to express these corks into mural art or tropical architecture. In other words our traditional village huts and our sun-dry brick walls could be aesthetically ornamented with drink corks.

In most of West Africa, mural painting is an index of status and family lineage. This mural painting experiment can include plastering with corks. Schools can also use these corks as part of handwork, manual labour, and pedagogic aid.

The cell phone revolution has brought with it the littering of a post – consumption material called ‘air time cards’. Used air time cards can be explored by designers and sculptors for aesthetic purposes. Designers can use them as fabric embellishment, sculptors can use them as pulp for dolls and toys, interior decorators can use them for the interior decoration of walls of public places.

The discarded shells of snails can be transformed into household art objects. The seashores of some of our ocean cities in Africa are awash with sea waste (coral shells) that can be managed into cultural ornaments. Examples are legion.

Marula Studios in Karen, Nairobi

Environmental – friendly/Art Awareness Corporations
The aggressive publicity carried out by breweries, tobacco companies and cell phone corporations is unprecedented in Africa. It is fashionable to have newspapers with advert inserts of beautiful glossy coloured paper that most readers throw around as litter. Corporations could instead sponsor the central pages or back covers of these newspapers using the same glossy paper carrying sections of their adverts.

Another area for corporation intervention would be in book production. Primary school books and books of general reading could be produced by corporations with their covers carrying the adverts. The “Macmillan” example in Zambia where an anthology of stories for youths on AIDS is an exercise that has enhanced the wealth of children’s literature showcased new writers and illustrators and reduced environmental waste.

Lastly our billboards carrying photographs on corporation adverts not only litter our streets, as they are renewed every other day, but they depreciate the role of the visual artist. It is in this connection that the Tanzanian government has requested corporations to use drawings rather than detachable posters on public billboards. The art of drawings on bill boards called “sign writing” is both an environmental friendly exercise and art awareness venture.

Collective (p)artnership
There is therefore a dire need for all stake holders to be conscious of the environmental impact of both controlled and non licensed waste and the existing opportunities of transforming such waste into artistic wealth. To attain these objectives, local governments and corporations would need to launch Art/Culture competitions, work with the various Ministries (Health, Culture, Tourism, Education etc) and support the original artistic endeavours of the environmental artist.

The media also have to focus on our environmental waste not as a pejorative function of litter louts but as an environmental precursor for civic and artistic minds. This way we may end up building a society of individuals that is informed on environmental awareness through cultural innovation and a commercial vista through artistic entrepreneurship.

Indeed boundless imaginations of the environmental artist make us believe not only in the triad of environment–art-commerce, but also in an emerging art waste culture which emphasizes that one person’s rubbish can be another person’s raw material

This is an opinion piece. AfricanColours encourages debate on contemporary African art and the opinions expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect those of AfricanColours.

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vasundhara: very much inspired with your article

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