KarunaNews Story

Inside San Francisco’s 47-acre recycling and recovery center, where people can bring truckloads of cast-offs, artists have special access to an ever-changing landscape of reuse material. More than 100 tons of material enter the building every day. Besides just being the waste management company, Recology’s mission is to conserve resources and reduce waste, inspiring a more mindful relationship with the things we throw away. Since 1990, Recology has run an Artist-in-Residence program that supports Bay Area artists, giving them freedom to scavenge materials for art making. The four-month residency also provides artists with access to studio space and a stipend. Artists have scavenging privileges in the Public Reuse and Recycling Area to reimagine the discarded waste as art objects. “The artists love the access,” Recology spokesperson Robert Reed said. “The materials dropped off are varied and interesting.” Recently, the resulting creativity from dozens of Artists In Residence was on full display as 2,000 people attended the opening of a free exhibition featuring 35 years of artwork—a retrospective embodying the phrase ‘trash to treasure’. While the approaches and themes vary widely among the 63 artists featured, a shared thread runs through it all: the possibilities of transformation through reuse.