Don't Forget to Recycle!

You can remind your friends, family and coworkers to recycle all the time (like, ALL the time), but it really doesn't get across the real point. We consume and discard of SO much material every day. New York City is a tiny spit of land and we generate 14 million tons of landfill waste every year! Major art installations, like the ones below can transform how a viewer experiences a space, but also (even more importantly) give them a visual of the girth of waste we generate. 

Post-consumer plastic water bottles cascade down the walls of this gallery, transforming the space into sort of an natural underwater scene, don't you think?

Tadashi Kawamata recreates natural structures, like beehives and nests, with discarded wood in very unconventional, high-traffic locations. See more.

An entire city block in Riverside, California has become a public art gallery for Martin Sanchez. The chapel is made mostly of beer bottles, with a dome covered in intricate mosaics made of broken dishes. Pop by Tio's Tacos while you're there.

Zac Freeman on his recycled plastic portraiture, "It is very important to me that I incorporate the actual objects into the art as opposed to a picture or rendition of it because it better expresses the intention of the artwork. I feel the junk is more powerful being present. It is an actual thing to be reckoned with that existed in this time and place and carries energy in and of itself.”  A few years back we collaborated with artist Barbara de Vries on a Plastic Is Forever campaign and collection, which transformed beach plastic into wearable art.

Tim Noble and Sue Webster carefully piece together discarded wood, welded scrap material, broken tools, and other trinkets you'd find in the trash to create very lifelike shadows. 

Choi Jeong-Hwa gave an old building a facelift when he (we think he had some help with this) covered an abandoned 10-story building with 1,000 reclaimed doors.

See more large scale recycled art installations here, here and here.