Bottle caps were melted down with a panini press to make Kelly Collins' 'Trash' piece. Photo / Bevan Conley
Bottle caps were melted down with a panini press to make Kelly Collins' 'Trash' piece. Photo / Bevan Conley
Edith Gallery is hosting its first exhibition of the year - 'Wasted'.
The works were made from recycled materials by first year UCOL art and design students, with the aim of exploring the ways in which waste could be repurposed and reimagined.
Their next assignment will involve creating interior objectsfrom the same kinds of materials.
Whanganui Resource Centre manager Dale Cobb was on hand on Tuesday to open the exhibition.
"You've captured the best possible artifacts in the best possible place," Cobb said.
"I'm getting excited about the fact that in eight to nine months time even more things will have been created.
"Our industry is all about repurposing and putting products back into society, and I can see businesses being created from some of the works on display here today."
One corner of the gallery was dedicated to the work of Nick Blackwell-Readie, who used glass bottles to create a multicoloured window and a variety of sculptures and vessels.
"I just went and helped myself to the bins down at the recycling centre," Blackwell-Readie said.
"It's quite an involved process. I started by cleaning the bottles and taking the labels off, separating the base and neck off, then I loaded them in the kiln.
"From there I tried to refine that process, so the bottles would unfold instead of collapse, but I ended up with enough that collapsed that I used them anyway."
Nick Blackwell-Readie's work was made with beer bottles he collected from the Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre. Photo / Bevan Conley
For the next step of the project, Blackwell-Readie said he would continue with glass, and try to make "some kind of furniture" with it.
"It'll be a challenge, but if I can achieve something aesthetic and practical out of it, there's room to move from there."
Kelly Collins worked with recycled bottle caps, creating a striking, multicoloured plastic 'canvas' that hangs from the roof.
The plastic was melted down with a panini press and sculpted with the use of a heat gun, before being tied together with used vinyl tubing, meaning all the materials are secondhand.
"It's about keeping the environment clean and doing your bit, and trying to think outside the box with design," Collins said.
"There has been talk of making seats for the next part of the project, but it's quite brittle so I don't think it'll be stable enough.
"I'm thinking of trying a lampshade, because the lights would shine through the holes in the plastic and make some really interesting shadows."
Misty Tutaki used floor tiles, which were offcuts from Mitre 10 Mega.
She completed 12 original laser-cut designs, four of which were on show at The Edith Gallery.
"If I hung them on the wall they'd probably just fall off and smash, because they're pretty heavy," Tutaki said.
"Using the laser cutter was probably the most difficult part of the whole thing.
"You have to go through a lot of processes to be able to get it right, and make sure the laser recognises the pattern, which could be [made] in Photoshop or Illustrator."
Tutaki said she used the "less is more" approach for the exhibition, with two black and two white tiles on display.
The 'Waste' exhibition will run for the next three weeks in the Edith Gallery at 24 Taupo Quay.
