Generous Waste Workshops
Transforming Waste: Unleashing Creativity, Inspiring Innovation
Are you curious about unlocking the potential of your waste? Do you want to learn more about our workshops and how they can support your journey toward unlocking your waste's possibilities? Whether you're an individual, collective, organisation, or teacher seeking to spark conversations about circularity and decentralised systems through waste, Generous Waste invites you to explore the transformative potential of waste.
At Generous Waste, we challenge the notion that waste is simply something to discard. Instead, we ask: Is it possible to imagine new possibilities through the transformation of waste? This question is at the heart of our workshops and engagement. We've witnessed attendees undergo mental leaps when they realise that the paper or item they're using or considering for purchase was made in a kitchen with simple equipment. People often marvel at the texture of paper crafted from various types of waste and wonder aloud, "You made this in your kitchen and printed on it with a normal printer? How?"
‘What! You made this in your kitchen and you were able to print on it with a normal printer?’
‘How?’
This is often followed by ‘What else could I not be throwing away’ or ‘All that paper waste I throw away without ever thinking what I could have done next with this! Or ‘Now I don’t even want to think about all that paper on my desk’. Part of the challenge we all face today is the stripping away of our curiosity to explore possibilities through the materials we find around us. There is literally no obvious need to be in a continuous cycle of reimagining the materials around us. For every little thing we can conceive of needing - there is a ready made option ready to be delivered yesterday.
What prevents us from engaging deeply with materials as generous, abundant, and full of potential? Time, knowledge, and convenience are key factors. Our modern lifestyles, shaped by the conveniences of mass production and technology, have distanced us from the knowledges that once allowed us to recreate possibilities from everyday materials. As a result, waste, once seen as potential, waste has drastically increased and become a burden on our environment.
“Alienation, in the traditional scheme, was a direct consequence of work's becoming wage-labour which deprived man of the opportunity to create and be recreated.”
Deschooling Society, Ivan Illich
There is much to be said about the radically different forms of waste we now see in our world, such as petroleum based products and derivatives. Plastics are an example of petroleum based products that are very much intrinsic to modern life. These products are not going anywhere soon so we must continue reimagining them through projects like Burton Rerun and Precious Plastic. Please do find out as much as you can about your local initiatives that help to keep as much waste in circulation as possible!
Generous Waste seeks to transform your perceptions of waste from something to simply be discarded to something full of potential and possibility. Through workshops such as paper making using waste materials, botanical ink making, and printing with Tetra Paks, we empower individuals to reimagine waste as generous and abundant.
One example of the success of our approach to transforming your imagination of what is possible with waste comes from a collaborative workshop with design students in Bilbao’s IED Kunsthal. Initially skeptical about paper's viability due to perceived limitations, a student left the workshop with a newfound curiosity for materials. Inspired, he returned the next day with a 3D printed push mould he had designed and printed overnight, along woth some seeds and fertiliser. We witnessed him leading his classmates in making seed bombs. He shared that the introduction to Generous Waste encouraged him to consider engaging with materials beyond functionality but also as something that holds engaging stories to inspire imagination and conversations around the lifecycle of materials hence the seed bombs.
If like this student you are inspired to re-evaluate your relationships with the materials around you by joining a workshop or exploring collaboration opportunities, reach out to us at generouswaste@gmail.com. Together, let's reimagine the world through waste.