One person’s trash is another person’s sustainable art sculpture. That’s how the saying goes, right? Well, it is now as last week saw the unveiling of London‘s newest (and most eco-friendly) public art installation which has been built entirely out of – well – trash.
Standing proud at three metres tall on the corner of Oxford Street and South Molton Street, the ‘Starlight Faerie‘ has been made using recovered and repurposed waste materials, found across the Westminster district. The interactive installation has been created by local artists and Westminster university grads, Julie Beech and Danil Ripnar, with the aim to inspire passers-by to take sustainable action and contemplate the entire life-cycle of the everyday materials they use.
The sculpture has been commissioned by Veolia and New West End Company and will be remain in place until January 2024, when it will then go on tour across Westminster. Materials and donations from across the district have been used to create the installation. Tealights from Westminster Abbey have been transformed into the faerie’s corset and the faerie herself has been created using a mannequin from a busy Oxford Street Store.
As well as encouraging visitors to consider the beauty of the transformed waste materials, the artwork will act as an interactive donation point for Oxford Street’s official charity partner: Starlight. Passers-by will be able to seamlessly tap to donate to the charity which works to support children in hospital to experience the power of play. The charity is represented by the stars that adorn the ‘Starlight Faerie‘ sculpture.
Dee Corsi, Chief Executive, New West End Company, commented: “The faerie is a beautiful piece of interactive public art which will inspire passersby to not only make sustainable changes in their own lives, but to also change the lives of children in hospital this Christmas. By donating to Starlight through the sculpture, members of the public can share their support of the charity’s mission to bring the joy of play to children who need it the most.”
Julie Beech and Danil Ripnar, ‘Starlight Faerie’ artists, said: “It has been a privilege for us to work on this project with New West End Company and Veolia, elevating waste materials into something beautiful to raise awareness about the need to be resourceful. Experimentation, randomness and intuition has dictated the design process, led by the unpredictable nature of using found materials. We see ourselves as urban foragers, finding value in what may be seemingly useless or undesirable.”