get upCYCLED, hampshire college, Amherst, MA (2012)
(Above) Video still from Get UpCycled documentary, created by Jon Butler (2012). Full film (below).
Co-Director
A performance and video/sculpture/sound installation sited in the Hampshire College bus shelter, which connects Hampshire to Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Students converted 1,500 plastic bottles into raw material for the installation to spark a wider environmental discourse about oil, energy, waste, and violence.
Co-directed by Beth Ferguson (Sol Design Lab) and created in collaboration with students enrolled in the "Rethinking Public Places" course offered through the Hampshire College DART Program, Amherst, MA.
Design, Art, and Technology: Re-thinking Public Places,
Re-purposing Everyday Objects, Re-imagining Social Change
A toxic material is populating trash receptacles everywhere. Every plastic bottle ever made still exists today, posing a serious threat to our bodies, land and watershed. Billions of gallons of oil have been used in their production, fueling destruction and war. Mobilizing against this threat, 16 students and 2 instructors set out to spark a wider environmental discourse about waste, labor, consumerism, violence, transportation and energy.
This group of artist technicians created a sculptural intervention by upcycling 1,500 plastic bottles; reclaiming them as beautiful instead of leaving them to be buried in landfills or dumped in the ocean. The bottles were sandblasted and bound into a hexagonal grid that curves across the interior of the Hampshire College bus shelter. The organic forms that emerge are both perplexing and hauntingly beautiful. The sound of dripping water echoes through the space while warm, solar-powered LED light illuminates re-purposed skateboard benches. Text winding
across the windows guides viewers towards a wavering black and white monitor where the technicians’ labor and the process of creation are revealed.
get up · get informed · get upset · get together · get creative · get upCYCLED
On view: February 2012
The Hampshire College Bus Shelter (library lawn)
Hampshire College Design, Art, + Technology Program
dart.hampshire.edu
Videography by Molly Epstein, Beth Ferguson, and Jon Butler