“Art changes people and people change the world,” says British artist, teacher and visionary Char Evans. Evans is the brains behind Eco Art Installations, a non-profit enterprise committed to spreading the ecological message while fostering cultural awareness and interaction. The message? We have too much garbage. It’s a message strikes a particular chord with developing countries that don’t have recycling plants.
But we can do something about it.
This grass-roots demonstration project completed two months ago in Auroville, India makes the point. Last March Evans and over 100 artists and collaborators created an event which made use of both natural materials and recyclables. The centrepiece, a huge geodesic dome, was constructed out of bamboo. A large kolam, a floor painting comprise of loops and dots, was made out of rock and chalk powder.
The project was financed by a $ 900 US Kickstarter campaign which paid for electricity, water, fruit snacks and a video to document the procedure. The exercise was capped off with workshops into making useful products out of recycled newspaper. Like bowls. All told, the project made use of recycled bicycle tires, wheels, washing machine drums, telephones, clocks, cartons, cans, computer keyboards and mesh. As they say “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
Evans has a degree in Art History and Architecture and a post-graduate degree in Education. Her vision is largely a result of teaching English and Reiki in India and Thailand and seeing the issues for herself. She says the Auroville project not only demonstrated what can be accomplished with recyclable materials but also nurtured self-esteem, self-discipline and co-operation. “It was designed to explore community creative potential, raise awareness on ecological issues and to present our vision of beautiful co-creation,” she says.
Take a look at the video with colourful details:
Check out the video of the Time-lapse of Eco Art Installations:
Presently stationed in Italy, Evans is raising funds for another eco art installation next year, this time in the Amazon rainforest.
Project Credits:
The installation was created at the Bamboo centre in Auroville, India and was the result of the creative collaboration of over 100 people, involving local and international artists and the local community, over a period of around three months. Balasundaram Ponnusamy and the Kolam Artists of the Bamboo Centre, Mohanam Cultural Centre, Yatra Srinivassan of Yatra Multimedia, Catherine Starostenko, Gaia Harvey Jackson of StampCollective and Joe Iredale of HalfCut, Reda Radi, Cosmo Brahman, AuroTejas Hemsell and her dance troupe, Einat Ran, Kwizera Samuel, Gosha Bury, Axel Carlstrand, Sri Kolari, Romain Timmers, Madhu Jayamoorthi, Balazs Virag, Balazs Budai, Lili Almassy, Osiva of Yatra Arts Foundation, Prakash Sathiyatharan, Gorka Salas, Marutham Cultural Centre, Kottakarai Cultural Centre and Mala Dev of New Creation were some of the artists and organisations involved.
