Attention artists: Old Town Ramble and Ride organizers want your crafty ideas for trash.
As part of the 12th annual festival – set to return Aug. 3 to Aug. 5 – the yearly summer showcasing of Old Town's unique arts and music scene will feature a new Trash-formation Art Contest, offering resourceful folks the chance to get creative with cast-away junk.
The prerequisites, according to festival coordinator Emily Smits, are simple: all artists need are some dump-destined garbage and a vision.
“The sky’s the limit. The beauty about it is it’s really up to your imagination,” said Smits.
While the trash-to-treasure contest is a first for Old Town Ramble and Ride – backed this year by returning non-profit partner Ecology North – the idea isn't.
In similar events held in recent years, namely showcases hosted by Ecology North and the Aurora Arts Society, dumpster-diving artists have delivered an array of reworked works, including sculptures fused from unwanted scraps of steel.
Similar sculptures are welcome at this year's contest, said Smits, but so is nearly anything an artist can think of.
“It could be a wall hanging or a piece of lawn art; something you build and attach to your bike. We don't put any stipulations on what the possibilities could be as far as what someone wants to create,” she said, adding submissions could even include art made from organic waste.
Old Town Ramble and Ride festival coordinator Emily Smits expects to see creative takes on salvaged items, like the one pictured here, when the 12th annual arts and music festival welcomes the first-ever Trash-formation Art Contest.
July 4, 2018.
Old Town Ramble and Ride festival coordinator Emily Smits expects to see creative takes on salvaged items, like the one pictured here, when the 12th annual arts and music festival welcomes the first-ever Trash-formation Art Contest.
July 4, 2018.
Smits hopes the creative contest will bring in up to 40 artists and their re-purposed Picassos.
Prizes, including a grand giveaway of a bicycle donated by Matthew Grogono of the Old Town Bike Works, will be handed out to winning entries.
With this year's Old Town Ramble and Ride aiming to highlight the “environmental side” of the festival, Smits said the recycling-focused Trash-formation Art Contest is a fitting addition to the lineup – one that strikes a cord with Ecology North's waste reduction mandate.
Festival-goers attending the Trash-formation Art Contest could run into crafty creations like this – a “bottle tree,” birthed form the mind of Dave Kellett.
“The Trash-formation Art Contest is an opportunity to showcase talent in our community and provide a creative outlet to challenge ourselves to extend the life-cycle of unwanted items. Thereby demonstrating a less wasteful approach to life,” stated an Ecology North spokesperson in an email.
“We all have an opportunity to reduce the amount of material that ends up in our landfill. The Trash-formation contest highlights reusing, which can also be seen as re-purposing or up-cycling items.”
But for festival-goers making the trek down the hill to Old Town, the inaugural contest won't be the only display of local talent tapped by organizers.
The junk-to-art showdown will go down in concert with the musical stylings of various acts, including this year's headliner Supaman, a hip-hop performer who recently took home two top honours at the 2018 Indigenous Music Awards.
The festival has added a fourth stage to host additional talent at the three-day event, which will also feature workshops and demonstrations, food, dance, films – and more art.
For Smits, it's no surprise that the salvaged, D-I-Y brand of art – set to be showcased in the upcoming Trash-formation Art Contest – has long been embraced by the community.
“Well, Yellowknifers love the dump – YKEA is no secret. But I think just in general there seems to be kind of a shift in thinking about what kind of trash we produce and what kind of waste we create,” said Smits.
Smits, who is drawn to revitalizing old furniture as an artist herself, said there's something about finding use in the useless that's appealing to the masses.
“I know myself I love to take things that have have abandoned in life and make it useful and have purpose again,” she said.
“It reminds us of what we're producing, what we're doing, and also being creative with it kind of gives it new life. Not all art needs to be that but it can help to provoke thought or make you look at things differently,” added Smits.
Interested and salvage-savvy artists looking to breathe new life into out-to-pasture items, objects, materials – and whatever else – can showcase their skills by contacting Ecology North at byran@ecologynorth.ca. The deadline for first come first serve submissions is July 27.