I'm on a mission to discover projects with a purpose.
My name is Christian Ruggieri, and I've traveled the world as a volunteer building houses.
Along the way, I met people who were creating unique projects to benefit their communities.
I was so inspired to see how small acts can make a big impact, I've made it my mission
to find more of these stories and share them with you.
Come with me on an inspiration safari.
All these works of art were made with materials found at the dump, home to a unique art program
in San Francisco.
I'm here with Deborah Monk, the director of the Artists in Residency program here at
Recology to find out what's up.
Our founder, Jo Hansen, was an environmentalist, an activist, and an artist.
She was invited out to visit our facility, which came out, she couldn't believe, like
all the materials that were here, at that time, getting land filled.
She thought it would be a perfect place for artists to come out.
Artists help us look at the world differently.
When they take these objects that have been deemed valueless and been tossed by somebody
and they create something that now has meaning, and then we look at it and we're like, huh,
I can't believe somebody threw that away, one, but maybe I should think about my own
consumptive habits, maybe I shouldn't buy that extra pair of shoes, or maybe I should
use that, whatever, for a longer period of time.
That is cool!
This is made by Linda Rainchard.
Although a hundred artists a year apply for the residency program, only six are chosen.
The current artists are Tamara Albatis, a sound sculpture installation artist, and Amy
Wilson Faville, a mixed media artist.
So we have two artists working at a time.
They spend four months in the studio using materials that they find in the public disposal
area.
So when they start the residency, the studio is completely empty.
They get a shopping cart and they go out to the public disposal area, which is where
you or I might bring materials from our house to town.
If you go back to the studio, they work towards an end of residency exhibition, and they're
very popular.
Hundreds of people attend.
They're a lot of fun.
We have a barbecue, and all of the artwork is for sale.
What got you interested in sound and incorporating sound into your sculptures?
It's so rich and it's deeply connected to our emotions and who we are and how we sort
of perceive things, and that's powerful stuff, and it's very personal, but it's very universal
also.
I've been scavenging from the PDRA mass amounts of speakers, speaker boxes, things that we
don't really use anymore.
I'm just putting them into these sculptural arrangements.
We're putting together things in a new way so you can sort of perceive a different way
that you can see your world.
All my art supplies were already here.
Take tracing paper and draw each shape on the tracing paper and then transfer that onto
the fabric or the wallpaper whatever I'm using, cut the shape out, and glue it on with the
glue that I also have to find.
When people dump their mattresses, they stack up big piles of those behind the PDRA.
The mattresses were here on my first day, and I was like, wow, it's a mattress canyon.
How do you decide what to keep of everything you find?
You have to use your gut, and you have to be fast because there's a very short amount
of time from when everything gets thrown off the back of the truck onto the floor and when
a huge front loader actually pushes it out of the way to make room for more trucks.
There's about a five to 15 minute window at best.
You have to descend on the pile like a crazy woman and start ripping through it and as
soon as you start hearing the beep, beep, and you see the truck, you have to jump off the
pile because he has to do his job.
If it just seems interesting to me, I try to pull it out as fast as I can.
You know, some of the things that I've pulled out of the garbage, I would have never thought
that I would pull out of the garbage.
I think that the thing that got to me the most that I found here was an American flag.
Some recordings, some NASA space sound recordings of the magnetic frequencies of the planets.
It's like a decade of the 70s final wall paper book, so awesome.
How has this experience being a resident here, how has that been for you?
It's been amazing, like I'd never want to leave.
It's been nothing less than absolutely profound for me because I had no idea what I was going
to come across.
I had no idea what I'd be feeling when I was rummaging through all of everyone's, the
very ending of where your stuff goes, where it's never going to have another life again
and it's being thrown away in little pieces of things and then gathering them out.
It's really, it's been amazing.
To be able to get up in the morning and know that it's my job to go to a studio and make
art is amazing and we need a lot more of that.
It's incredible.
I love it here.
The best part about working here is working with artists and they're always so different
and to see the ideas that they have and what they come up with is always fascinating to
me.
We're back at Recology.
It's the moment we've been waiting for.
The art is finished, the gallery is open, Amy's got carpet mountain done, Tamara's about
to jump into dwell for a performance.
Sit back, relax and enjoy yourself.
That's my plan.
The art looks great.
I know we saw a carpet mountain in some of its formative stages.
It's an adult now.
It's all grown up.
It makes me want to touch it because of the texture.
This is art you can touch, people, art you can touch.
Amy, it's been a fantastic turnout.
How has the evening been for you?
So much fun.
There's all these people here.
We've got beer.
We've got hot dogs.
We've got art.
We've got performance.
I think everybody's had a really good time.
It's been a great night.
I've gotten a lot of feedback about all the work here.
Well, someone bought one of my pieces.
Mattress Canyon.
Mattress Canyon.
Physically, people let go of things here.
They don't.
Metaphorically, I was letting go of a lot of things.
I need to let go off.
Seemed like it was a very cathartic piece for you.
Absolutely.
Very cathartic.
It felt good to pick up those scissors and to cut those voices off.
My work here and not curate art at a gallery downtown somewhere.
I'm really interested in the environmental aspect of our program.
So again, I've been here for 12 years.
I don't think I started out as an environmentalist, but I definitely am now.
So I'm really interested in the plastics that are in our oceans and talking to groups about this
and getting people excited about recycling and resource conservation and reducing our
own consumptive habits.
It's really become a very important part of my life.
A lot of people don't know that there's this program happening at the dump.
And I think it's fantastic and I want more people to find out about it.
Every dump should have one.
Recology really does help facilitate the circle of life for our belongings.
From your garage to the dump, through the hands of an artist, and onto public display.
The next time you're getting ready to throw something out, ask yourself if you can reuse it.
If not, take it to Recology.
You'll help save some trash from the landfill and make an artist very, very happy.
Recology
Recology
Recology
