Wizer turns garbage into art

Wizer turns garbage into art

Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

Most people perceive garbage as something with many unpleasant attributes and something that they must get rid of as soon as possible.

Yet, with creativity and concern for the environment, trash can be turned into functional, fashionable consumer items or artistic works of art.

That is what the U.S.-born artist/environmentalist Ann Wizer, 53, is trying to show to the community here through her solo exhibition called Soapopera, which will be on until March 27 at the Cemeti Art House.

Opened on March 8, the exhibition displays her latest works, which are mostly furniture of contemporary design, made of packaging waste from various personal care and household products ranging from toothpastes to fabric softeners.

There also many fashionable bags, of different designs and sizes, made of the same materials.

"I just want to show people that we have very huge, huge problems regarding useless waste and I want to offer a simple solution to it," Wizer, who has been living and working in Jakarta since 2000, told The Jakarta Post after the opening ceremony last week.

Among the pieces on display, there is the spilled milk II 2002 and spilled milk III 2002, chairs and an ottomans. The first is made of polypropylene and Capri-Sonne drink packages, while the later is made of polypropylene and toothpaste tubes.

Other furniture on display, a set of chair and low table, includes chipped tooth 2002 (made of polypropylene, toothpaste tubes and Capri-Sonne packages), riverbed 2002 (polypropylene and Capri-Sonne packages), and executive decision 2004 (polypropylene, toothpaste tubes and Capri-Sonne packages).

Flotsam and jetsam 2004 is a chair and an ottoman, which are unusually tall and dominated by soft red colors. It is probably the most eye-catching piece on display.

Another interesting work exhibited is what she calls how can I get your attention? 2005. It's an installation work featuring golf bags 90 centimeters high and 30 centimeters in diameter each made of packaging waste by the largest manufacturers of household products in Indonesia.

Claiming to have been working with garbage since she was in the Philippines -- she lived there for 10 years -- Wizer said that waste problems are the problems of the government, community and corporations.

"We produce more and more and more waste all the time but have no big consideration on how to get rid of it," said Wizer, who is a graduate of several schools including the California College of Arts and Crafts (in Oakland), the Aegean School of Fine Arts (Paros, Greece), and Sogetsu Kaikan (Tokyo, Japan).

Wizer says that every year some 80,000 tons of flexible plastic packaging is produced while some 50,000 to 60,000 tons of polypropylene is also manufactured in Indonesia.

"This, to me, is a tragedy. It's not just ruining the land, the air and the water, but also destroying the people's health," she said.

"This (packaging) waste is strong, durable and indestructible. So we have to use it up again. We can make new products from consumer waste. That is the main idea of this project," she said.

Soapopera itself, according to Wizer, is a summary of an ongoing project she started in February 2002 in Jakarta, which she named the XSProject.

Through the project, she buys packaging waste from scavengers and have other poor people in need of jobs make new products out of the tossed-out items. To do so, she cooperates with local community foundations.

Thanks to the project, she says, over 250 poor families, including scavengers, benefit from it, either by selling packaging waste or producing new products from the waste. They are those involved in the works in Jakarta, which is supervised by Yayasan XSProject Reguna Kreasi -- one that she founded for the project.

For that, some Rp 4 million to Rp 5 million is spent a month by Reguna Kreasi to buy the garbage from a single community of scavengers in Jakarta.

Wizer started a similar project in Yogyakarta in October 2004 where she embraced workers and scavengers from the Pambudhi Foundation.

With the exception of the furniture and installation works that Wizer prepared and created at her studio in Jakarta, all the products made of the packaging waste exhibited in Cemeti were produced at Yayasan Pambudhi.

"We hope through the exhibition we will be able to attract local businesses in Yogyakarta to support the foundation and continue the project," said Wizer.

After all she has done with the waste from companies and even government offices, still there is little appreciation given to her either in the form of support or attention.

She added that "many companies and other groups take the concept of the project, disregard the intention, and use the programs and project designs for their own commercial promotion."