Last week 11 artists from all over the world came together in the Rucka Artist Residency in Cēsis to launch WasteArt artistic campaign “NOT out of sight, NOT out of mind” with a common goal to urge people about a vast amount of waste produced and consumerism behaviour that is leading Latvia and Estonia to depletion of natural resources.

During the campaign, 17 artists from 10 countries will use capacity of contemporary art and diversity of artistic practices to develop travelling exhibition, which will raise awareness and hopefully change people’s habits towards more environmentally friendly behavior. This campaign is necessary because nowadays the rhythm of our daily life’s is fast and the amount of information that we observe each day is bigger than ever before. Therefore, people choose not to see and care about the trash they produce – seems like it disappears somewhere in the Black Hole, so we don’t have to worry about it anymore. During the campaign, the artists and the WasteArt team want to urge people and stress that waste does not just disappear after throwing them in a garbage bin. Eventually, each produced waste footprint will strike back – damaging the landscapes, ecosystems, natural resources and quality of our lives. The campaign encourages people to see that waste is “NOT out of sight, NOT out of mind”.

“Reuse of Waste through Arts and Crafts” (WasteArt) No. Est-Lat 65, is funded by the European Regional Development Fund, Interreg V-A Estonia – Latvia Cross-Border Programme and co-funded by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of the Republic of Latvia (VARAM) and project partners.