There is no trash in the nature

There Is No Trash in Nature was a participatory performance made together with Anna Tereshkina for the public art festival Art Prospect in St. Petersburg in 2014.

We set ourselves an almost absurd task: to take apart a large public garbage container, sort everything, wash it, and prepare the waste for recycling. Visitors were invited to bring their own waste too. In St. Petersburg at that time, separate waste collection existed mostly through small volunteer initiatives and was not supported as a stable public infrastructure.

During the performance, people kept bringing waste and throwing it straight into the container. By the end, we discovered that even washed materials taken from a mixed garbage bin could not be accepted for recycling because of the increased toxic risk for workers. So we threw everything we had washed and sorted back into the same bin.

Using a megaphone, we announced that people had to inform themselves about the real possibilities of separate waste collection instead of relying on one-time artistic actions. Later, many journalists who had not actually attended the performance described it as a successful educational event about sorting waste.

Performance, video 8:14 min

27/09/2014