Billie Maciunas is coming out with a book soon, The Eve of Fluxus. She also recently published a book of poetry, Unsettled Oranges, written in the wake of the death of her husband George Maciunas. Here she is in a trash outfit fittingly entitled “the return of the repressed”. Billie has had no TV since 1972.
Wow, here’s some fun news: Pam Longobardi was recently named a “coastal hero” by Coastal Living magazine – the previous recipient was the president of Ocean Conservancy. Read the full story in Coastal Living, and also check out a related story on Mom Culture. Pam has a new book out too, Drifters, published by Edizione Charta (Milan, NY). The book launch will be in conjunction with a show at Primo Piano gallery in Lecce, Italy. Pam is also one of the artists who’ll be participating in the Visible Trash – Art into Action traveling show, which is still in the works.
Claudia Borgna is an installation and performance artist whose main medium is recycled plastic bags. Her work is a comment on the way we live and how it affects the environment, but she adds “… it’s a non-judgmental comment, since I haven’t really resolved for myself, and never will, its contradictory nature of beauty and danger.”
I discovered Claudia from a photo in the McColl Center artist’s section of Mitchell Kearney’s website.
Yay for the colorful people! Yanbuki Rolando Politi did a solo show in 1991 called Bye Bye Throwaway Society, and another in 1993 called Packaging Inferno. In April he’ll be doing The End of Waste World as part of the 13 Days of Waste market, to be held at the Secret Project Robot space in Williamsburg.
Oops: this just in: THE END OF WASTE has been postponed due to “logistical and scheduling reasons at the current venue.” Politi goes on to say that “it will be rescheduled as soon as a suitable venue for staging THE SUPERMARKET OF WASTE is located and secured. Ideally this would be an empty store of no more than 1000 square feet, a raw loft with cooking facilities or any location that can be transformed.” The search is on, space needed for 13 days only.
This was the original announcement:
“Dear Yanbuki friends and partners in trash adoration: the 13 days will be full of surprises and will inspire many yanbukis, especially the new ones to this wonderful world of trash, as these so-called crisis times have forced many people to take a good look at what they consume. The whole spirit of the exhibit will be on the positive and on the opportunities we now have to make a radical cultural switch and stop ignoring all those invisible people living off garbage around the world.” – Rolando Politi
Art is excellent and crafts are ok, but what really rocks my world is when people build entire dwellings out of trash. This one’s by a retired Serbian physics prof, Tomislav Radovanovic.
Ruby Re-Usable has been following Visible Trash almost since its inception, and has been a recycling activist for way longer than that. She’ll also be participating in the traveling trash expo, Visible Trash – Art into Action. Love those plastic bag babies!
Researching trash, water and the North Pacific Gyre led me to Pam Longobardi, artist in residence for the Blue Ocean Institute. She has a long list of other accomplishments as well, and will be a participant in next year’s traveling expo, Visible Trash – Art into Action. The installation shown here is “Ghosts of Tears” (1997); mutant artifacts from globalized consumer society are at driftwebs.com.
…a Mercedes Pens? Well honey, you’ll just have to talk to The Pen Guy about that. Costas Schuler is one of those rare people with so much energy it jumps out at you across the internet and licks your hand. His other blog, Art Car Central, is the only art car link I keep in my bookmarks bar now. It’s a good-looking, complete and well-researched source – and then there’s the content: he finds stuff I’ve never even heard of! Hats off to The Pen Guy… and stay tuned. He’ll be part of the traveling Visible Trash expo I’m planning for 2010.
I came across this photo one day while digging through the trashpile, and started reading about what (and who) was behind it. Meet Trace Ramsey and his partner Kristin, living on their own organic farm and teaching radical DIY sustainable living by example. Trace’s blog Cricket Bread is on my regular reading list.
