adminArts Correspondent
An art exhibition focusing on environmental issues related to rubbish opens today at National Gallery of Zimbabwe. Running under the banner “Own Your Rubbish” the project is the brainchild of photographer and creative director Laurie Macpherson. She is working with four community groups: The Zee-Bag Project, Shingirirai Trust, The Happy Organisation and The Hope Group and 12 individual local artists who work in the ‘medium’ of rubbish and found objects.
The exhibition aims to promote artists and craft people by showcasing their work and improving their skills, giving training on new product lines and giving them visibility and economic security.
It also seeks to conscientise and educate people about personal responsibility to the rubbish generated in the society and improve attitudes and behaviour regarding the important local and global environmental issue.
The project is being funded by the EU through the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe and tells the story of citizens taking responsibility for their consumerism and, hence, their rubbish.
The exhibition will take various forms including a symbolic installation walkway representing and made from the main categories of rubbish namely – plastic, glass, tin, aluminium and paper.
There will also be a photo exhibition challenging personal involvement with waste while there will also be posters and graphics.
Another platform would be a TV zone with a television showing environmental clips, viewed from up-cycled “viewing pods” with recycled seats.
Laurie hopes the exhibition will open the public’s eye about the local and global problem of how humanity is destroying the planet in myriad ways.
She plans on getting disadvantaged school children bused to the exhibition where they will be given guided tours around the show.
Online Reporter