Lake Macquarie Sustainable Neighbourhoods are challenging the way we look at waste with the annual Waste to Art exhibition. Waste to Art is a community art exhibition, open to everyone in the Lake Macquarie region of NSW.
Waste and plastic pollution has an enormous impact on our health and wellbeing as well as our local and global environment. About 12% of core waste plastics are being recycled (National Waste Report 2018) in Australia. “… Compared with a selection of other developed economies, Australia generates more waste than the average and the proportion it recycles is a little less than the average”.
That is something! So let’s challenge this vast amount of household, commercial, industrial waste and overconsumption by tapping into our creativity to re-think waste.
Waste to Art is for Our Community
Lake Macquarie Sustainable Neighbourhoods invites submissions from everyone in our community, artists, community groups and school to take up the challenge and create a new life for materials that will otherwise be thrown away.
Artworks can be sculptural or functional, as long as they are created predominantly from waste items. Using imagery or artworks to communicate the issues around waste, litter and overconsumption is another type of artwork.
Visiting the Waste to Art exhibition is for everyone to see and share the wonderful and inspiring creations made by the people of Lake Macquarie.
Sourcing Waste
Your local op shops, online selling platforms such as Facebook Marketplace & Gumtree or bulk waste collections are great sources to find waste. Places like Reverse Garbage in Sydney and the Makers Place at Teralba have a selection of clean industrial and household waste just waiting for re-use.
Remember to check out your own home for an ongoing source of waste!
Waste to Art Inspiration
For ideas and inspiration on the variety of artworks from current and previous Waste to Art years, read more stories here at French for Tuesday:
- See Waste Differently (Video)
- Blue Wrap Couture
- DarNET! A Coloured Spectrum of Waste
- Sewing Couture- Style Dresses from Waste (Video)
Non-profit organisations such as Upcycle Newcastle use fabric and jeans as the foundation for their items and is a local example of how we can use clothing waste in alternative ways.
Where will you find your inspiration? Perhaps from old clothes and fabrics, e-waste items or waste washed up on the shores of our beaches and lake?
2023 Registrations
Click here to visit the Sustainable Neighbourhoods information page for the 2023 registrations, for creatives, artists, school students and community groups.
All styles of artworks, sculptures and imagery are encouraged.
Explore and share your ideas about waste, litter and overconsumption and showcase your artistic ability by creating an artwork for the local Waste to Art exhibition.
The exhibition opens up an excellent discussion and exploration into how we, as a community, can rethink, repurpose, reuse and repair.
For all Waste to Art enquiries, contact wastetoart.lakemac@gmail.com.
The Details
The annual Waste to Art exhibition is usually held from the end of October until the middle of December.
Follow the Lake Mac Waste to Art exhibition on Instagram here and the Sustainable Neighbourhoods Lake Macquarie Facebook here.
For more info about the Sustainable Neighbourhood Program in your area of Lake Macquarie City Council, go here.
The Waste to Art exhibitions are an initiative of Lake Macquarie City Council. This project is a NSW EPA Waste Less, Recycle More initiative funded from the waste levy.
Read More…
Related stories about Waste to Art from French for Tuesday:
- Three artists share their creative journeys about why they create art using discarded waste as the alternative blank canvas for endless artistic possibilities.
- Blue Wrap Couture
- DarNET! A Coloured Spectrum of Waste
- Sewing Couture- Style Dresses from Waste
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