Trashplant Festival Creates Environmental Awareness Through Artivism, Tenerife 2018
Bordalo II curated Trashplant Festival in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Tenerife, bringing together international artists whose practices explored waste, pollution, environmental responsibility and the possibilities of creating art from discarded materials.
Held from 25 to 30 June 2018, Trashplant approached environmental awareness through artivism, using sculpture, installations, interventions, music and public activity to encourage audiences to reconsider how society produces, consumes and disposes of materials.
Artists taking part included Bordalo II, ±MAISMENOS±, Icy & Sot, Catarina Glam, Laurence Vallières, Diedel Klöver and Forest Dump.
“In Trashplant we value all the benefits that a ‘second life’ of the waste can give us, a ‘transplant’ of the same.”
Bordalo II’s Half Canary Crow
As curator and participating artist, Bordalo II created Half Canary Crow using waste and plastics sourced from the local area. The sculpture extended the material language of his Big Trash Animals, where discarded objects become both the physical structure of an animal and a commentary on the environmental pressures created by human consumption.
Bordalo II, Trashplant Festival, Tenerife, Canary Islands, 2018. Photo © Luz Sosa.
±MAISMENOS±: Emphysema and the Air We Breathe
Portuguese artist ±MAISMENOS±, the project of Miguel Januário, approached environmental damage through the language of human illness. For Emphysema, discarded plastic bottles formed the name of a chronic lung condition within a wooded environment, drawing a visual connection between damaged lungs and the degradation of the natural systems that sustain life.
±MAISMENOS±: Cirrhosis and Water Pollution
In another intervention, Cirrhosis appeared across water barrels near the Bajamar swimming pools. By referencing a disease associated with long-term damage to the liver, ±MAISMENOS± created a metaphor for the accumulation of pollutants and toxins within natural water systems.
Together, Emphysema and Cirrhosis connected the health of the human body with the health of the environment surrounding it.
Icy & Sot: Plastic Ban
Iranian artist duo Icy & Sot addressed plastic pollution through their Plastic Ban interventions at Mesa Mota and the coast of Jover in La Laguna.
The subject remains urgent, plastic pollution was already recognised as a major global environmental threat. UN Environment reported that more than 8 million tonnes of plastic waste were entering the oceans every year, harming marine wildlife and placing increasing pressure on aquatic ecosystems.
Laurence Vallières: The Fragility of Nature
Canadian artist Laurence Vallières created an owl from recycled cardboard, using a material that is simultaneously familiar, recyclable and fragile. The owl, traditionally associated with wisdom, became a reflection on the vulnerability and impermanence of the natural world.
Catarina Glam: A Turtle by the Sea
Portuguese artist Catarina Glam used reclaimed wood to create a turtle beside the sea, topped with a small lighthouse. Positioned within a coastal environment, the work drew attention to marine life and the continuing dangers created by discarded plastics, fishing equipment and other forms of ocean waste.
Forest Dump: Returning the City to Nature
Forest Dump approached waste from another direction, transforming a bare wooden telephone pole by attaching branches and returning the manufactured object visually towards its natural origins.
The intervention invited viewers to reconsider the transformation of raw natural resources into everyday objects, and what remains when their original purpose has been forgotten.
Diedel Klöver: A Fish Made From Recycled Iron
German artist Diedel Klöver transformed recycled iron into a fish sculpture, connecting industrial material with marine life. The contrast between the heavy manufactured metal and the organic form of the fish reflected Trashplant’s wider concern with the materials entering and altering natural ecosystems.
Trashplant Festival and Environmental Artivism
Trashplant described itself as an exercise in environmental awareness through art, bringing artistic practice and activism together within the public spaces of La Laguna. Alongside the installations, the programme included music, workshops, talks, screenings and activities intended to encourage greater involvement with environmental preservation.
“Trashplant is an exercise of environmental awareness through art, that is, Artivism.”
Rather than treating discarded material solely as something to be removed from sight, the artists at Trashplant made waste physically visible, turning it into a means of questioning consumption, pollution and humanity’s relationship with the natural world.
Trashplant also placed Bordalo II’s Big Trash Animals within a wider artivist framework. Its combination of environmental sculpture and social critique connects naturally with the concerns explored through Bordalo II’s Provoc practice, while the festival’s immersive approach anticipated the animal environment of Wild Wild Waste later that year.
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Photography @Luzsosafoto
