Youth exchange: from waste to art
One person’s trash is another person’s treasure: young people from five countries turned discarded materials into new objects and works of art.
Why
Our throwaway culture produces a staggering amount of waste, from plastic packaging to electronics. Art can help us look at waste differently. UpcycleIt worked where art meets sustainability: participants used upcycling to turn discarded materials into new objects and works of art, and to think about their own consumption habits.
What happened
- Workshops run by each national team: flowers from plastic bottles, mosaics and origami, a tree mobile, collages and more.
- Kora workshops: recycled paper and notebooks, natural pigments, and small furniture and objects from scrap wood.
- A sculpture challenge and co-creation workshops for the final pieces.
- Litter picking along the lakefront in Passignano sul Trasimeno.
- An environmental quiz, an introduction to permaculture, a world café and an intercultural night.
- The Upcycle Gala, a final evening where participants showed each other their creations.
Results
- A toolkit with the workshops of the exchange, free to download.
- Average overall score: 8.7 out of 10 (23 responses).
“I found out how to live more respectfully, create alternatives, do better, talk about it and share.” (an UpcycleIt participant)
“Having such a diversity of techniques and manual things to do, trying amazing food every day and seeing how life is on an eco-farm.” (an UpcycleIt participant, on what they found most interesting)
Download
Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. © Associazione di Promozione Sociale Kora and project partners.
