It’s a movement! From Ed Molina’s East Harlem DSNY Trash Museum to your trash can, here’s a thoughtful and fun way to focus on our environment, creating everything from art and jewelry to fashion by upcycling what has been historically just tossed.
Now, after months of collaborative trashion design workshops, and weather cancellations, the much anticipated Trashion Fashion Show has been rescheduled for Saturday, October 7th in Morningside Park, when the fashionistas will take to the runway from 3:00 to 3:30pm.
Research shows us that this concept is far from new. Throughout history, people have salvaged materials, creating what they might need or like by using discarded bags, bottle tops, feed sacks, gum wrappers, cans, you name it. Well known for his salvaged art ~ the Ghanaian sculptor, El Anatsui, who in 2023 sold one of his large-scale wall hangings for over $2 million at Christie’s in New York.
Knowing little about Trashion beyond El Anatsui, many were introduced to this creative art form by none other than (tree hugger extraordinaire) and local artist, Susan Stair, who introduced us to the MIT Trashion Show, with student designers from MIT and other Boston area schools creating pieces made of trash and recycled materials, and modeled on their runway annually.
The Trashion Show is presented by Art Lives Here, Friends of Morningside Park and artist Susan Stair. with choreography by Cynthia Reed. The Show will take place on October 7th, 2023 from 3:00 to 3:30pm, by the art installation ‘Setting the Stage for Climate Change’ at 116th Street and Morningside Drive, near Columbia.
While you’re there, don’t miss works by artists Elizabeth Knowles and Eric David Laxman in and around the Pond ~ Pond Blossoms and Watching Over You, on view through October, 2023.
The Trashion Fashion Show compliments Susan Stair’s art installation, Setting the Stage for Climate Change, recently unveiled at the 116th Street entrance to Morningside Park. Stair’s art installation will be on view to August 8, 2024. The Runway Show is choreographed by dancer, Cynthia Reed.
Take a look back at New York City Department of Sanitation’s (DSNY) Nelson Molina and his Treasures in the Trash Collection inside a DSNY garage, which led to the art exhibition, ‘What is Here is Open: Selections from the Treasures in the Trash Collection” at Hunter East Harlem Gallery in 2019.