RE-USE

Start with children in their personal living environment. Use this as material, buy as little as possible. This is not only sustainable, it increases the involvement with their environment. It offers the opportunity to give children a voice, to attract the attention of other people. It can become an activistic art action. Action as art, art that infiltrates the everyday routine.

Artist Ieke Trinks (Rotterdam, Holland) likes to go outside to collect material. With a shopping cart she roams the neighborhood with the children and collects waste. The children even ring the doorbells of houses with a request for things that people want to get rid of.

The way children view waste, changes with the cleaning and sorting it. They can see useful material to make something out of. This creates new products with special functions, names and manuals.

To draw attention to their new ideas, the children parade through the neighborhood with the products. They clearly developed a mission throughout the series of four workshops: shouting ‘Recycle’, ‘Hand in stuff’, they march through the streets.

Ultimately, the products are ‘for sale’ without money being involved. The Shop is made up of the large amount of cardboard that ends up in the trash thanks to online purchases. The children are the proud sellers.