As part of our #WasteDialog around the 2017 Global Dialogue On Waste, we are publishing Q&A from organizations that featured in our Waste Pioneers list. We start this series with some insights from Basurama.

Basurama is an artists’ collective dedicated to research, cultural and environmental creation and production whose practice revolves around the reflection of trash, waste and reuse in all its formats and possible meanings. 

Describing their work a little deeper, they said,

In Basurama we tend to say that waste does not exist since we consider it a raw material – a material for the creation of a tool for reflection and for social transformation. We work to visualize what we ignore, we try to show what is hidden, both material and immaterial trash.

What aspects of waste do you think is least communicated about, but that which needs a lot more attention?

Waste is normally something that we are used to hiding that is invisible in our daily life. However, we are producing waste all the time, directly and indirectly. We believe that citizens should know more about the production and consumption processes and the waste related to them.

Are there any recent campaigns from Basurama that you would like to share details of?

We do not have “campaigns”, but we have projects with different purposes and objectives.

Some of our latest projects are:

• Navidad en RE, 3 art installations made with the trash produced by citizens and institutions that have collaborated by giving away their waste. The main objective is to focus on the waste generated during Christmas.
  

  Making of the installation – basurama.org CC BY-NC 4.0″

• RE Create Taipe, a project focused on working in public space, urban waste and local communities. The project takes its shape through research, analysis, meetings, actions, events and installations conceived by Basurama and City Yeast together with other cultural agents and citizens. The main objective was to reflect and work against the standardization of public spaces.
• Autocoles, a collaborative educational project, which is a way to change the school yard as an educational strategy. Example: IDEO

One of the themes for the bWW 2017 Global Dialog on Waste is Collective Action.

How do you think Collective Action relates to Basurama’s work? Who are the stakeholders that play in part in ensuring this collective action?

We always work, think and do with others. Every person involved in the project is important, as everyone has something to share and to contribute. In Spain there was a television show where the main character always sang “solo no puedes, con amigos si” (by yourself you can’t do it, with friends you will).

Reaching a goal, solving a problems, getting solutions, thinking beyond what already exists, will only be achieved if we do it together; taking into account different approaches and solutions. Collective action has always been important, but in our today’s globalized society, it is more and more crucial. We have to start thinking about

• who is “all”?
• who are the ones we are missing in the collective?

We have to start making stronger networks, amplifying the commons, taking into account the feminist perspective and understanding culture as something we have right to.

Featured Image: The installation at one of Basurama’s Art for Change projects | basurama.org CC BY-NC 4.0

Watch the trailer for the 2017 Global Dialogue on Waste