From "Waste to Want": Regenerating art from discarded objects

Abstract

The paper incites a creative spirit in designers, artists and the art-minded professionals to bestow optimistic look on giving new life to old, discarded objects in their environments. Habitually, the issue of want and waste is part of world’s culture. We are in a waste age because as we keep on consuming one thing or the other, so it becomes imperative that wastes are dotted about. Nevertheless, without prudent waste discard practices and creative conversion of dormant materials into substances of benefit to end-users the entire society would be susceptible to environmental epidemics emanating from waste and junk pollution. This is where art and design come in, not just as an agent of waste reduction in a throw-away society like ours, but mainly as a means of giving second life to old, decrepit and rusted or even dead objects lying fallow. The resurgent power of art is defined in body of this paper. For instance, discarded paper materials can be processed and used for modelling in Papier Mache art. Abandon metal scraps, condemned machine components and disposable plastic scraps and found objects are all junks that are very useful in regenerative art. Meanwhile as the primary intention of a designer or an artist is to earn a gainful living from his creative endowment, this paper examines some ways by which discarded objects can be transformed into creative art forms for economic and socio-cultural well-being, irrespective of the seemingly unending economic hardships in the country.