Shelves full of gray plastic crates take up most of the wall space of the spacious main area of the Creative Reuse Center (再生藝術工坊) in Taipei. In them are random scraps — wood, fabric, cardboard, metal, toilet paper rolls, milk cartons and CD packaging.
As its name suggests, it’s all about reusing here, as the center, established in October of last year by Lovely Taiwan Foundation (台灣好基金會), serves as a material bank for student projects, art installations and other endeavors.
Tomorrow, the center is hosting its monthly Creative Reuse and Good Life Fair (再生好生活市集), where a number of organizations will discuss their experiences reusing a wide variety of materials.
Photo courtesy of Creative Reuse Center
Offerings include culinary organizations that make use of unwanted ingredients to make food, a studio that makes accessories solely out of found material and a coffee shop that encourages customers to recycle their cups and gives out coffee grinds for dehumidification and deodorization.
The fair aligns with one of the center’s goals, which is to educate people about the possibilities of material usually considered as trash, says Chen Chih-hsuen (陳之軒), who is in charge of education at the center.
fun with materials
They are constantly trying to discover, develop and attract new users and new methods of reuse.
“We hope more people can breathe life into these materials,” Chen says.
The center collects discarded raw material and samples from about 40 businesses and factories throughout the nation, and offers it at no cost to the public. Chen says much of it would have ended up in incinerators anyway.
Groups of students of all ages often book the center for two hours and engage in what Chen calls CIY — “create it yourself” — just having fun with the materials with no specific goal. If they want to make a ball, they just forage in the gray crates and discover their own ways to put one together.
“They see that something that may look like garbage can become something else through human creativity,” Chen says. “It overturns their concept of materials.”
The center also hosts a variety of free workshops (seats are limited and a registration deposit is required), including toilet paper roll dolls, dreamcatchers made from discarded yarn and paintings using acrylic markers and fabric scraps.
For a full list of events, visit their Web site at www.crc.org.tw (Chinese only).
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