Around our place

Raising awareness on waste left in nature

Considering nature as our common home, we started collecting waste left around our village. We found a huge quantity of various objects in nearby nature.
Small paths strewn with hunting cartridges. Big waste like a mower on the bottom of a dry stream, car tires, rusty pipes, parasols, skis, furniture; thousand and one daily objects like cans, bags of crisps, gloves, plastic bottles, broken glass bottles, cardboard packings, clothes, ropes, batteries, cd's, towels...

All these objects degrade over time, turn into mini particles, transported by the wind and the water. They integrate the soil and make their way to the rivers, the sea.Through flora and fauna the materials of these abandoned waste ends up into our drinking water and food. It is essential to collect them before they take this journey.

Used to see all kinds of litter everywhere, we needed to renew our way of seeing to create photos raising environmental awareness and stimulating action.

Instead of opting for images that provoke disgust, we chose a playful approach to raise curiosity.

Rubbish in nature is one thing, the nature of rubbish another one. We met rubbish by observing it closely, by touching it, by playing with it. We questioned the global context. Where does this object come from, how did it get here, what was it used for, where will it go to....

As we staged the found objects, we focused on its particular expressions and the visual possibilities it had to offer.
We treated every object with care, saw it come alive in a portrait or scenery.

A fly, disguised as a bee, landed on a false flower of an abandoned package. A simple plastic cup turned into a flying bird. Waste knows no borders.

We fact checked that we swallow one credit card of micro plastics every week. Picking up litter before it degrades and enters the water and soil cycles seems really urgent. Everybody can decide to adopt a path on an everyday trajectory, pick up the objects to be recycled.