“They were all dressed in black and white, like Shiva and Kali. Their aspect was feral, earth connected but also divine, and their house was made entirely of waste material.” This is the portrait of a sadhu and his wife who live near the Ganga River in the region of Uttarakhand in Northern India, inspirational figures within a labyrinthine journey towards awareness. The interlocutor within the narration of this story is Chris Hardy, 26 years of clever creativity and smiling resistance against the status quo, founder of no profit organisation UpCycle.
UpCycle was (re)born a year ago and it works to make sure that music festivals rock without trashing the environment. This is done by the Eco-Rangers, who organise sorted waste collection and set up the ExChange point, where you can switch your rubbish with objects made of upcycled materials. Those little treasures can be anything: leftover clothing made jazzy, broken accessories fixed, pop Tetra Pack purse (like the one Chris has in his bag), alternative works of art. The aim of UpCycle is raising people awareness through collaboration, instead of merely doing the dirty job for them. The value of the ExChange is more ideal than artistic, “it is not only a useful way to reuse plastic cups, we want to impact on people’s mind, to break down people concept of waste, value, beauty”.
All of this has been privately concretised by the sadhu and his wife. Chris’trip to India was a surreal epiphany. After graduating in Theology and Philosophy of Religion at Bristol University in 2008 he left for India to start a yoga course and eventually ended up trekking up the Himalayas with two sadhus. Yoga is at the core of UpCycle, e.g. karma yoga (action yoga): the concept is doing something to benefit others instead of merely satisfying our selfishness… refreshing, isn’t it? That’s why UpCycle is no profit: “If you just want to be the creative part of the project you don’t worry about making money and it’s also nice not to have that as a motivation”. All these reflections come behind a little gesture as the ExChange, a ring pulls necklace, “all of this can be embodied in this tiny piece of rubbish”.
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| The ExChange Shrine |
Back to England, Chris started a project called Vampire Fish, active in European festivals. Soon green thoughts merged with the artistic project, because “there was so much hedonism and fun and trashing the environment at the same time”. He remembers coming home after a festival with a bag full of trash and emptying it into his parents’ garden, like a child showing his first Lego castle. Where everybody saw smelly and dirty pieces of glass, Chris saw the potential of creation from destruction, the ultimate rebellion in a world of mutually consuming self-indulgence.
The (upcycled) rubbish realm grew and prospered among British festivals like Glastonbury, the Secret Garden Party, Shambala, the Cloud and Cuckoo Land, the Cock and Bull Festival and the Sunrise Off-Grid. “Festivals are breaks between your normal reality, they break down your prejudices, people become freer. Job, sex, skin colour, sexuality, country, money don’t matter anymore”. Fun promotes learning, creativity promotes awareness. The barriers to reach social responsibility towards the environment are mentally, and they are based on the concepts of non-stop distraction and organised lying that Aldous Huxley explained better than I could ever do.
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| Cloud and Cuckoo Land 2011 |
Next summer UpCycle will paint the aforementioned festivals green, but the next thing in UpCycle’s to do list, written on recycled paper on a notebook sewn during a book-binding workshop, is Yard Life Festival on April 28, a non-profit, invite only event, organised by Jen Lloyd to raise money for the Multiple Sclerosis Research. Indie music, vintage fashion and interactive art mingle in the Hackney Downs Studios, where the king of the ball will be Pete Doherty. The event meets UpCycle’s credo of creativity and non-profit and the building itself is an example of upcycling, “using waste space for creative potential”.
Chris’ last enterprise consisted in helping Steph Witherell with her project Urban Interventionist in the shape of 150 origami cranes hanging on a tree in Brixton Windrush Square. Steph is also author of the blog Deconsumerism, a report on an ongoing experiment of life outside consumerism, and I know this post is already too long, but this really needs to be mentioned. Money is the deus ex machina of consumerism, and in order to reverse the mentality you need to be able to control the source, materially choosing ethical banking. The world sold its soul for a Campbell’s soup and after seventy years of passive nihilism it is now time to ‘make, do and mend’ our mind to reclaim our faculty of thought.
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| Pictures at theloveofit.co.uk/news/origami-bombing-hits-london |
For further inspiration:
up-cycle.org.uk
yardlifefestival.co.uk
deconsumerism.blogspot.com
brakethecycle.org.uktheloveofit.co.uk
Cradle to Cradle. Re-making the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley
Pictures 1 and 2 by Chris Hardy, pictures 3 and 4 by Steph Witherell
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