Seattle art exhibit turns our trash into works of art

There’s an old saying that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. However, what if this trash was not just treasure, but a potential work of art waiting to be given new life? 

This idea is one that Recology King County’s Artists in Residence Program has put into practice with the exhibit “The Unbearable Lightness of 300 Tons a Day,” now showing at the North Seattle College Art Gallery through May 2. Displaying a collection of distinct art pieces from 16 alumni of the program made from a variety of discarded materials — including Styrofoam, plastic, glass and more — it’s an installation meant to challenge us to confront our impact on the climate and the waste we produce. 

For Maria Phillips and Amanda Manitach, both former residents of the program who now manage it, the installation is the result of years of work dating back to 2015 when AIR first began. Created by Recology, a company dedicated to resource recovery and eliminating waste, and modeled off its program in San Francisco, AIR consists of two artists participating in a yearly four-month residency where they get $1,300 per month to work on their respective pieces.

From there, it’s about seeing the transformation of the materials — which come from Recology’s material recovery facility and its stores, as well as Seattle’s North Transfer Station — and getting a greater sense of what happens to the tons of waste (300 tons of which the material recovery facility processes, Phillips said, and is where the installation’s name comes from) we throw away and don’t ever think about again.

The final results also serve as works of art in their own right: They do the work of educating and expanding what audiences consider possible for these materials while proving to be far more than just the trash they were originally. 

“It’s a tribute to the quality of the artists and the work that they make,” Manitach said. “It is work you would see in a museum.” 

Manitach, who had her residency in 2023 where she worked with cardboard and packaging that she made into a collage, described the experience as “magical” despite the sobering observations she had. 

For instance, after incorporating multiple Amazon delivery boxes into the collage, she realized we take for granted just how many of these boxes are used every day. 

“It’s emotionally exhausting to be in that setting, to be confronted with all of this nonstop labor and objects,” Manitach said. “It reframes the everyday object in a way that is so intense.”

The “300 Tons” exhibition marks the first time the collection has been shown, with an emphasis on smaller pieces due to storage needs. But all of the final pieces are ones that Manitach said are “wildly different” from each other, even when they’re working with similar materials. It’s these materials, many of which won’t degrade, that we put out of sight so we don’t have to think about them.

The art pieces put them back in front of audiences in a new way. Phillips, whose piece utilized to-go cups, said people told her they now think about her work when given the option to use one for their cup of coffee and instead opt for a reusable one.  

“It’s those little moments where the art is making a change,” Phillips said. “We expose, we point to, we draw out these elements, the everyday things that we don’t even think about.”

The experience of taking materials that have been thrown away and bringing them to the forefront of our minds is one that weighs on the artists themselves and those who later see their creations. But the works that make up the “300 Tons” exhibit are necessary.

“We can make beauty from this very uncertain situation we find ourselves in,” Phillips said. “It’s a window into the bigger picture, the greater picture that they get to experience by being a part of this residency.”