Everest Trash Becomes Art in Nepal
While it took more than two years for porters and yaks to haul eight tons of trash from Mount Everest, it took just a month for Nepalese artists to turn some of the waste into creations worthy of display.
From Sept.16-Oct.16, Da Mind Tree and its art branch The Art Club Nepal held an art and culture workshop and symposium on transforming the trash pulled from Everest during the Saving Mount Everest Clean-Up Expedition in Spring 2011 and 2012. The artists had a variety of materials to choose from. Over the course of the cleanup expedition, a team including 65 porters and 75 yaks pulled rusty oxygen tanks, old cooking-gas containers, broken tent poles and even parts of a crashed helicopter from the slopes.
The goal of the symposium, themed “Journey Towards Our Future,” was to continue the environmental awareness campaign of Saving Mount Everest and to increase the aesthetic value of the waste through upcycling.
The works of art included a wind chime made from old tent poles and an idol of the Hindu God Ganesh made from helicopter pieces. They are now on display in Kathmandu. The artists are also collaborating to create a large piece for the International Mountain Museum in Pokhara, Nepal, according to Republica, one of the country’s daily English-language newspapers.
Despite cleanup efforts, garbage continues to be an issue on Mount Everest where an estimated 50 tons of trash remains. The Art Club Nepal hopes to raise money to have the trash sculptures installed in the Everest region to make visitors and locals more conscious of the problem.