 "Photo: Adam Jungwirth")
Old computer towers, filing cabinets, clocks and an array of old junk covered the grass space in between Reeve and Breese Hall for a giant art project as a part of Earth Week on campus this past Thursday and Friday.
UW-Oshkosh anthropology professor Stephanie Spehar and her sister Christine Spehar, the creator of RuckusRoots, organized the event called TRASH-formation with the help of student organizations who raised money and volunteered for the event.
RuckusRoots is an organization aimed at combining art and activism with an eco-theme, something they like to call “artivism.” The organization is based in Los Angeles and contributes to projects like this all over the country. Their next big event is at the Joshua Tree Music Festival in Los Angeles.
“We want to transform the way students think about activism,” Christine Spehar said. “It’s something they can do while hanging out with friends.”
She said they like to specialize in interactive art and the like to put personal touches on the artwork they create.
“We wanted to create a spectacle where waste could be turned into something that can be used again,” Christine Spehar said.
So, the sisters contacted an artist that Christine knew named Robin Guttman, who specializes in art like this all the time and got him to come to campus to create art out of the trash.
Guttman saw what RuckusRoots did last year and when Christine contacted him he wanted to be involved this year. He has traveled all over the county and even other countries doing events like this: taking recycled material and turning those materials into something meaningful.
“[This event,] its basically craft time on a huge scale,” Guttman said. “This is just like my back yard; it would have piles of junk. It’s just a big experiment to see what we can make.”
The finished product ended up being a couple of different installations. One was a large palm tree with toucans on the top and bright red-orange flowers next to the tree. The inspiration came from another member of the team.
“Someone said we should do something that comes from California since that’s were I’m from, so we decided to do a palm tree,” Guttman said.
At the base of the palm tree are filing cabinets that have been turned on their sides to provide somewhere for students to sit. Guttman hopes students will come down and check out the art and end up hanging out with friends.
“I just hope people know you can come and sit out here,” Guttman said. “Hopefully it will have a permanent home on campus.”
Another part of the project was a stage where Chancellor Wells gave a speech on Thursday, where he talked about the importance of Earth Week and the activism that was taking place.
Guttman said Wells seemed to like what they were doing, and he was happy the Chancellor came. He said he liked that Wells seemed to be a supporter of creative art like this.
A sailboat was also created out of an old projector screen, along with “Janky Franky” who sits in an old computer chair and has a clock for a face. Guttman was especially fond of Janky and added with a laugh that he wanted to make sure students came down to “hang out” with Janky.
Kara Hodgson, an anthropology major, was helping take apart the old computer towers on Thursday, and said she was happy to be there.
“It’s a good cause and it will be interesting to see what turns out,” Hodgson said. “We just hope it will be a place where people can come sit and enjoy the shade.”
Guttman was also happy with how many people turned out to volunteer with him, since they only had about 10 people sign up and 50 ended up coming to help him out. He said he would love to come back next year and do a completely different project.
“[I would like to do] a student garden, but I don’t know how the watering thing would work,” Guttman said. “I just want to figure out ways to see what we can use and what we can recycle because it’s a good way for people to learn what they can do.”
At the end of project, Stephanie Spehar just wants to raise awareness for students to think about what we get rid of and make something useful out of trash.
“[We want to] create an atmosphere to draw attention to waste and what we don’t really think about when we throw things away,” Stephanie Spehar said.
Everyone was happy with how the event turned out and the amount of people that came and helped. Stephanie Spehar said it is still up in air where the project will end up, but it will stay where it is until the summer. Once the construction starts on the residence halls though, that area will become a construction site so the project will hopefully have a new home by then.
You can check out what else RuckusRoots is doing around the country at ruckusroots.org and take a look at more of Guttman’s work at artcustoms.com.
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