30 Ideas Para Transformar Basura: Art Book
A personal art book project full of activities about reducing and reusing things that are considered garbage or obsolete to the cycle of life of the product. This includes bits of research about recycling, documentation with notes and resources, and finally, an art book prototype.
Origins
In 2015, I had the option to make a prototype base on 1 subject: economic, social, or environmental. I chose the latter and went with the usual path, recycling. During the research, I was challenged to investigate the dark side of recycling and design something completely different due to misinformation and controversy (Is about following the stages chronologically: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycling as the ultimate option). I compiled several pieces of documentation, to name a few, from other resources about recycling, from origins to consequences:
- Is Recycling Actually Bad For the Environment? by Kelsey Clough.
- Penn & Teller: Bullshit! – Recycling.
- The Political Economy of Recycling by Cato Unbound (and several editors).
- The great recycling LIE (what really happens to plastic) by Sorelle Amore Finance
Progress
After thinking about what prototype I wanted to design that could create an impact while doing what I love, and I’m good at, I decided to develop an art book of activities, the audience I targeted to young kids (priority), teenagers, and adults who love anything related to upcycling, D.I.Y projects and sustainability. The problem stemmed from the misinformation about recycling (moral perception) and the lack of creativity and curiosity people have nowadays due to how are trained to follow a lifestyle that is expected of us (ex. awful educational system and the government closing institutions in P.R). The solution was the creation of an art book, where the objective was to provide a fun and creative task to the audience on how to bring a second chance to what we considered garbage or obsolete. This way we can implement new inventions with multi-purposes while encouraging curious minds to develop new solutions. The purpose of the end of life of the art book is to be torn apart and use the scraps for more unique creations.
Prototype
This prototype took me around 6 months to accomplish, between scripting, correcting, designing the artwork, researching cost materials, and talking to different manufacturers for production.