Upcycle Exhibition

The exhibition Upcycle, at Athens Institute of Contemporary Art (ATHICA‘) in Athens, Georgia, USA. opens in congruence with Earth Day on April 22nd, 2012. Upcycle celebrates over twenty artists’ creative approaches to material re-use, materials destined to become landfill fodder — or worse, toxic pollution — are reborn as these artists dream them out of the waste stream.
Curated by Lizzie Zucker Saltz with the assistance of Katie Faulkner, the exhibit will run through Athfest weekend, closing on Sunday, June 24th, 2012.

The Upcycle exhibition is ATHICA’s positive response to the zero-waste movement; which questions our culture’s addiction to cheap disposable goods and the resultant evil twins of global industry—environmental degradation and municipalities’ struggles to cope with accelerated landfill expansion. These memes gave curator Lizzie Zucker Saltz the impetus to put out an artists’ call, garnering the eighteen individual artists included in this exhibit, who hail from around the world, and employ a diverse range of approaches and materials. They have been selected for their innovative upcycling of materials usually regarded as trash, transforming them into objects of conceptual contemplation, wonder and beauty. Upcyling is distinct form of recycling, whereas no energy is expended in the production of transforming raw materials into new objects.