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A wealth of garbage

By Stephanie Maureen F. Asi, Staff Writer

12/01/2008

You’ll know that a person is an environmentalist at heart when she instinctively picks up a piece of trash that she comes across, no matter where she is — at the beach or on the streets of Manila. But what happens when an artist is also an environmentalist?

Creativity reaches new heights when someone loves both the art world and Mother Earth. Think toothpaste tubes and toothbrushes as the materials for an eye-catching, head-turning work of art. Even more extraordinary, however, is when an artist-environmentalist becomes a philanthropist, a beacon of hope, for people he or she barely even knows.

One such woman is Ann Wizer, who goes the distance by being a doer, a person who doesn’t just dream about change. She is a philanthropist (although she doesn’t really like to be called that), helping those she deems need help the most: the invisible ones.

Making the invisible visible

One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. This is true, even more so than we thought. A group of women from the Malibay area have turned garbage into art, and in the process showed that there really is treasure in trash. This group of almost 90 women was taught to see the potential in trash.

Wizer, born an American but Asian at heart, just mustered the courage to approach them, give them materials (a hook, some plastic bags and wires) and teach them the lost art of crocheting. The artist-environmentalist spotted the “invisibles,” whom she defines as women who are now invisible to the society — mothers, grandmothers and middle-aged women in impoverished communities. She explains that these women are most likely without a job because the opportunities to earn income may have long gone. The responsibilities they shoulder, like taking care of the family, an ailing mother or grandmother and the need to look after many kids don’t make the situation easier for them either. With the aim of making thesm “visible” and become productive members of the society, Wizer pioneered the Invisible project in a community in Malibay.

Apparently, Wizer’s causes didn’t just involve the Philippines. Her efforts to help goes back to the 1990s and early 2000 in Indonesia where she also spearheaded a project involving trash and Jakarta’s trash picker communities. According to her, getting people involved is no easy task. Wizer narrates how the Invisible Project’s counterpart in Indonesia, the XS Project, presented her with feats that she didn’t expect would be as difficult to surpass.

Noticing the piles of garbage, with bags of chips composing a large percentage of these, accumulating in Jakarta’s dumpsite, Wizer stumbled upon an idea of using these bags and turning them into art. She then approached the multi-national companies of the Asian country, pitching her idea of making art of these wastes so that the trash picker communities would earn a decent income and more people would be made aware of environmental causes.

Her pleas and pitches came to no avail. Almost 50 companies and funding agencies rejected her idea simply because each company, the ones manufacturing these products wanted only their products to be part of the art. It was just a marketing ploy for them, a promotion of their so-called corporate social responsibility. She refused to be used as a person who’ll promote the companie. The rejections almost broke her heart, but gave her the will to pursue her cause even further. From this, the Executive Lounge exhibit was born. It consisted of furniture made with the materials these companies produce. Covered in clear, plastic upholstery, these finely shredded bags of chips were used as stuffing for the chairs and foot rests. They were even color coordinated to provide aesthetic appeal. “The story of non-support is the biggest story. Corporate greed is as much a big story as corporate abuse of the environment,” Wizer explains. This became a catalyst for other projects such as the Invisible exhibit, which was recently held at the Galleria Duemila.

In the Philippines, Wizer explains that aside from the invisible people, we also have “invisible wastes,” or factory wastes and other forms of garbage that we forget about or refuse to see even when we pass by them in our streets. In this project, Wizer brings in the two forms of invisible in an effort to make them visible while forming sustainable livelihood for these people as well. “I’m trying to take the invisible waste and invisible people — neglected people — and put them together, give them a skill and opportunity, and give them the visibility to actually make an income and make a real impact on the environment, raise their self-esteem. It’s a win, win, win! It’s all about positive impact,” she informs.

Out of her determination to help the invisibles, she decided to impart to these women a useful skill and an opportunity to become artists as well. She told them, “Here’s your chance. We’re going to be doing an exhibition, you’re my collaborators. You’re part of the exhibition.”

Trash talk

The Invisible exhibit at Galleria Duemila was the result of weeks of these women’s hard work during workshops and their own free time and their harnessed creativity. The biggest piece in the exhibit was originally intended to become a tent to represent a dwelling. While the women were making it, however, Wizer saw that it looked more like a trampoline that also represented the project — something to spring off of to lift their spirits and their situations. Boasting of ingenuity, functionality and stylish designs were the smaller pieces such as bags, lanterns, home decors and even slippers! These products and artworks were auctioned off during the exhibit’s opening to help the group raise funds.

It was garbage art beyond expectations. I, for one, was thinking of the typical recyclables — tin cans, papers, boxes, etc. — to be jazzed up and turned into pencil holders and fans. But these women really did step it up a notch. They did more than expected with a heap of plastic bags — dirty, stinky, filthy plastic bags found in the streets and even in our rivers. It was exciting to see a crocheted trampoline, which also looked like a quilt from afar, interspersed with flat materials like light metals from mother boards, toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes in between the crochet patterns.

Wizer narrates the tedious process of creating the trampoline. She started with just 10 women, whom she taught how to crochet and gave the materials including wastes that were washed, cleaned and dried. She let them work on their individual parcels of what was supposed to be the large exhibit. After a month of workshops, she encouraged them to take home their work and continue crocheting during their free time. This time, they were the ones who would source for the materials and clean them. The next workshop, they started attaching the pieces together to form the tent-cum-trampoline, fostering the spirit of camaraderie.

They also had individual pieces, which they auctioned off. One woman’s chosen piece required much time and effort from sourcing materials, to cleaning and crocheting. Wizer also saw to it that she didn’t dictate what they would do, otherwise she would have 90 artworks in the same styles. By allowing the women to explore their creativity, she was able to acquire more than 90 pieces of different works.

Interestingly, she chose to use crocheting as a method of creating these artworks. It’s a simple skill that doesn’t require sophisticated equipment, she explains, and one can do it practically anywhere.

Wizer and the women used rejected materials like busted computer parts, motherboards, fasteners, computer chips, CDs copper, conductor wires, plastic bags and toothbrushes to create an artwork like no other. These artists realized a bounty of colors abound in the computer wires, which are normally burned in dumpsites. These wires they separated by hand and cleaned, giving them what vibrant threads to crochet. The plastic bags, on the other hand, were cut thinly to serve as threads as well. The flat, light materials like motherboards, CDs and light metals also adorned the artwork as they were crocheted together with the threads, giving the trampoline a more interesting texture.

Viewing the exhibit is an uplifting experience that gives one a profound realization that art can be found everywhere. In a way, the women were also taught to see the way Wizer sees the things around her, to see materials that can be turned into art from garbage. They were also encouraged to get their own materials. She simply told the women this: “You can make something from nothing. Your materials are free.”

Wizer hopes that more will come out of the exhibit. “My dream is to be able to show all these huge things in the museum. Have five or seven of them installed.” Wizer continues to do what she dreams.