2019 Edition

Observing the city, the streets, the trash before being recollected and the unique use of a plastic bottle. People drinking the contained liquid within minutes. Empty bottles accumulating in the trash. I look at them like pieces of precious crystal. When I began investigating and designing with used P.E.T bottles , the question of supply was one of my main concerns. Rather than buying materials to anonymous recycling companies, I decided to connect my project to the invisible people, called “pepenadores” ( a Mexican word for un-official trash pickers), who recollect trash from the streets of Mexico City and live off selling them (P.E.T , HDP, paper, metals and others) to companies. Many of them live on the margin of the society, in abandoned and poor areas of the city. Their participation in the production of designs opens the door to access better condition of living. Since 2015, I organise workshops with a group of “pepenadores”, trying to connect design with the people who manipulate our trash. These workshops are a reflexion about “possibility”. The possibility of transformation not only of the materials but also of the people, giving a special focus on handmade works with simple tools. As a result, having a strong contrast; a highly detailed design with sophisticated effects from a very common material. All begins with the selection of different bottles that are classified by shapes and sizes, washed and sanitised, to be hand cut and drilled into thousands of pieces. Later, these will be assembled into an aluminium and acrylic structure to become a chandelier. Thousands of transparent layers will catch the light and allow the ” transmutation” The iconic imagery of chandeliers represents opulence and luxury, but in this case, it is made of unwanted and discarded plastic. It questions the value of materials, but also the human behaviours and practices of the unique use of 3/5 plastic products. May the chandelier question us and lighten our answers.