Made from scraps. Informal production in the workplace
During the period of state socialism, followed by the deindustrialisation of the 1990s, the manufacture of household or decorative items on the side had become an impressive industry in itself at the Reșița workplace. Those objects were referred to as ‘DIY’ by the local residents, most of whom worked at either the steel plant or the engineering plant.
Mariana, a former teacher, would ask her husband, a technician at the steel plant, to make certain items she needed or wanted that were either unobtainable or too expensive. He would also surprise his family with gifts of his own design rather than imitations of mass-produced objects. She recalls the competition for the best ‘DIY’ items, which would often become a source of envy between families.
The consequences of the rush - Discarded opportunities
Fabrics and clothes impact the environment throughout their life cycle. The film talks about the environmental impact of the fast fashion industry: how the material gathered from the cotton field goes through the manufacturing cycle, how the craze of over-consumption makes people bring home more clothes from retail stores than they could ever need in their lifetime, which will travel on to a warehouse and often end up as landfill waste. What will happen next? The interviews help to understand the opportunities of material reuse for textile waste from manufacturing and discuss sustainable design, smart solutions and values. In the interviews, expert commentaries are given by an ethnologist, a designer and a creator of ‘trash-to-trend’ ideas. The installation environment used in the film was created with school students in the museum’s Participation Hall / DIY Gallery, where the young people analysed what is an ecological footprint, supply chain, sustainable waste handling and the possible new textile strategy for Europe.
Used (worn-out) clothes
Drawing inspiration from Scandinavian cities, Peter Verblač placed clothes stands on a number of streets in Celje with a sign saying ‘From the wardrobe to the street’, inviting people to bring clothes they no longer needed and to take what they wanted. This public exchange meant that people could get hold of suitable clothes even if they couldn’t buy them; anyone concerned about the environmental issues involved with new clothing could exchange their old clothes; and anyone who simply wanted a new item of clothing could come along and pick something up. The video shows how the street exchange initiative came about and how it was received by the people of Celje.
Mutonia. A family that shapes worlds
In the summer of 1990, Mutoid Waste Company, a group of sculptors and performers founded by Joe Rush and Robin Cooke in London’s Shepherd Bush district, took occupation of an abandoned quarry on the outskirts of Santarcangelo di Romagna (Rimini, Emilia Romagna, Italy). Ever since, Mutonia (as they came to refer to their living and working space) has been a community of creatives producing art from waste industrial materials. Mutonia has been recognised by the Italian authorities as an ‘artistic park’ and its residents often welcome visitors from all over Europe, who come to marvel at their creativity and commitment. In Mutonia, waste material becomes the inspiration for a project in which the community pools its creativity to the benefit of the Mutoid family as well as the residents of neighbouring areas, who often organise events to celebrate their creations.
The members of this community feel a strong connection to the historical rural economic and social structure of the people of Santarcangelo, who certainly also knew how to value waste, which they saw as offering an opportunity to improve not only their technical skills but also their quality of life. For this reason, the Ettore Guatelli Museum, located in the same region, approximately 200 km northwest of Mutonia, has always considered the work of this community of artists to be compatible with that of Ettore and of those who have recrafted the artefacts in his collection.
Joachim Siluè. Shaping the wisdom of things
The protagonist of this story is Kagnedjatou Joachim Silue, an artist born in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) who has been living in Italy for the past three decades. His creations are rooted in observation, respect and the artistic ‘interpretation’ of the ‘personalities’ of objects found lying around on the city streets he roams and in whose neglected forms he sees the potential to impart equally neglected lessons that are important for humanity.
In the summer of 2021, Joachim visited the Ettore Guatelli Museum for the first time to take part in the exhibition ‘Visioni dall’Infra-ordinario, TTT Tempo Terra Trame di vita’. He felt an immediate affinity to the work of Ettore, owing to the latter’s focus on marginal, lower class and scorned people and communities, from whom both saw they could draw lessons – lessons for our societies which, made wealthy through industrialisation, are growing poorer in terms of their capacity for autonomous creation.
Joachim’s talent and technical prowess give abandoned objects a voice, transforming them into bridges that allow us to access resources from worlds we can barely make out, and bring us closer to the wisdom of people we barely recognise.
Ettore Guatelli. The immortality of things
The Guatelli Museum tells a story through carefully arranged objects that line walls and ceilings. The exhibition is the fruit of around 60 years of collecting and constant updating by a primary school teacher from the Province of Parma: Ettore Guatelli. In around the 1950s, Guatelli began exploring the warehouses of collectors in the Appennines. At first, he went just to browse, but then to sell and later to salvage furniture, objects and tools from farmhouses and artisans’ workshops – items that, in those years, were being lost to modernisation. The objects he recovered and displayed were not rare or precious pieces as can be found in many traditional museums, but everyday items which, to this day, still bear the traces of the people who used them daily, refashioned them and wore them out until they became extensions of themselves. The Guatelli Museum therefore showcases robust objects and spontaneous re-design. This story, brought to life by the voices of some of those closest to him who now give tours of the museum, is not one of nostalgia; rather, and particularly in view of the museum’s green vocation, it tells of the desire to bring memory and creativity to the modern world.
Self made things
''Samoróbki'' are objects made by farmers for use on the farm''. These items incorporate elements of worn-out objects, tools or machinery. They reintroduce damaged objects or their components back into circulation.In the countryside, engineering and technical creativity was a highly sought after skill, especially since the culture of the Polish countryside in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century was based on the idea of self-sufficiency. Home-made items are now a response to contemporary ecological challenges and an important contribution to the discussion on "second-use" objects, which is of great importance for us all at this historical moment.
Voices from the Wasteocene –The Artist
The voice we hear is that of the artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, re-thinking discarded materials and useless objects – that were created to be waste – and telling how he reuses them.
Inspired by the way nature processes organic and natural waste, artists can process and regenerate ordinary materials, by transforming them into a noble element of a work of art.
It is a chance to see something surprising in the ordinary materiality yet also to see what art can do and has to say vis a vis the current waste crisis.