projects

DUMPING CAMPAIGN VIDEOS, CLEAN PHILADELPHIA NOW

The Dumping Campaign Video Art aims to challenge the status quo and bring attention to the problem of illegal dumping in Philadelphia. The videos seek to provide new perspectives and lenses through which to view the issue, raising awareness about illegal dumping and its consequences on the community, and the gender and racial disparities in shouldering the responsibility for cleaning up. We intend to spark empathy, support, and action from the broader public to combat dumping and work towards a cleaner and more equitable community.

DUMPING CAMPAIGN ART, CLEAN PHILADELPHIA NOW

Stemming from organizing that began in 2020, residents/members from the Kensington, Fairhill and Harrowgate neighborhoods identified DUMPING as the most pressing environmental justice issue they face. Residents/members expressed extreme fatigue from the unrelenting cycle of clean-ups that provided only temporary relief from the problem. Located in the least served neighborhoods in Philadelphia dumping disproportionately impacts Black, Brown and marginalized communities. Trash Academy designed interactive art/games to engage and build support to end dumping.

Covid-19 + Climate Change

Climate Change and the COVID-19 pandemic are the urgent crises of our time. This project explores their deep connection and creates visions for a just, sustainable future through a website and a series of posters. Participants in the project researched COVID-19 through the lens of environmental justice, climate change and ecology in order to unearth, better understand, and amplify hidden connections between current events and the ecological crisis.

PLASTIC BAG CAMPAIGN, BRING YOUR OWN BAG, THE BillboardS PROJECT

A billboard project was one of the tools in the campaign to reduce the number of plastic bags in Philly’s streets and in waste stream. Billboards around the city highlighted coalition members to amplify their voice for the protection of our city’s health and environment through promoting reusable bags. It was one of the many ways Trash Academy developed artistic interventions in multiple media to educate and engage residents in making a change to reusables. TA also created games, posters, banners, and bag monsters.

plastic Bag campaign ART

Plastic bags, identified by youth membership as the most overwhelming and pressing issue in the waste stream, led Trash Academy to partner with Clean Water Action, and the Zero Waste and Litter Cabinet of Philadelphia to create a campaign to ban plastic bags. Trash Academy had the role of grassroots education, organizing and raising the visibility of the campaign through creative, art-based actions. To build community support, TA led activities with more than sixty organizations across the city and had deep conversations with over 5000 residents.  A recent study demonstrated that the bag ban, initially delayed by Covid,  has diverted 200 million bags from the waste stream since going  into effect. 

Trashmobile

The Trashmobile is a mobile unit designed to educate, inform, and collect information about people’s experience of trash in Philadelphia. It meets communities where they are — at neighborhood events, community meetings, street fairs, etc. Trash Academy youth created games and activities to engage audiences around the issue of trash.

Public education poster

In an environmental science course at South Philadelphia High, youth engaged in a month-long exploration of trash rights and responsibilities in Philadelphia. With environmental activist Ron Whyte and artist Margaret Kearney, they investigated city systems as well as citizen rights and responsibilities relating to litter. They developed this tool in five languages, and with diagrams, to inform residents, business owners, and other stakeholders in their community around managing trash.

 Dirty Danger

The Dirty Danger project has produced an engaging and educational experience for passersby, via the City’s Big Belly solar trash compactors. The designs, created by Trash Academy youth with artist Eva Wŏ and environmental educator Ciara Williams, feature mystical animals camouflaged in vibrant, abstracted natural environments. Lurking in the background, photorealistic soda bottles, snack bags, and other trash items encourage us to think about where our litter may end up if we don’t properly dispose of it.

Corner activation

Trash Academy collaborated with community members to design and install creative trashcan structures for public use at two street corners in Philadelphia.  As the communal spaces of street blocks, corners create opportunities for spontaneous human encounters. Unfortunately though, because no one has ownership or direct responsibility for corners, they also tend to gather trash.

trash trouble

Students from across Philadelphia did extensive research into trash, recycling, landfills, and the environment in South Philly. Working with artists, activists, and city employees, the students created a new video series, Trash Trouble—blending documentary, poetry, and design to explore how recycling and landfills function, and to understand how they affect our experience of the city. The videos, facilitated by artists Eva Wŏ and Hilary Brashear, and environmental educator Ciara Williams, contribute to a growing public toolkit for “teach-ins” and other forms of citizen-to-citizen education.