They wanted to know if I might be interested in collaborating with them to use art to tackle the waste problem in the Everest region.

At the time, Everest was getting a lot of negative press about becoming the world’s tallest landfill – and they had a new, novel, and exciting idea on how to tackle it.

Unfortunately, the project ended up falling through due to logistical and budgeting challenges and I remember feeling sad that my chance to see this part of the world had vanished.

Little did I know, that almost 6 years later I would get a second chance thanks to an unexpected ally: A global cosmetics brand company called Kiehl’s.

This is what we did together:

But what is Kiehl’s connection to Everest?

In 1988, Kiehl’s sponsored the first-ever summit of Everest without supplemental oxygen. They wanted to test out their products and creams in an extreme environment… and were horrified to learn years later that what used to be a pristine mountain had turned into the world’s tallest landfill.

As a result, they decided to sponsor Sagarmatha Next’s Carry-Me Back program, a broader global campaign around the hashtag #DontRebuyJustRefill, and a pair of installations that I helped bring to life: one in New York City, and one in the Himalayan mountain range to connect our cities and nature.

And my relationship with Kiehl’s?

Well, that story also begins way back in 2017 – when I was introduced to Maggie Kervick by a mutual friend. At the time, she worked for another company – but she never forgot my art and that conversation.

Today, she’s their VP of Sustainability – and as they were designing their global #DontRebuyJustRefill campaign – she reached out to explore whether I might be interested in collaborating.

During the research phase of our project, I introduced them to Sagarmatha Next and their Carry-Me Back Program: A crowd-sourced waste management project that invites hikers to bring pre-sorted and crushed recyclable waste back down the mountain and dropped off at the local airport.

They loved the idea so much that they chose to sponsor multiple seasons – as well as an art installation at 12,500 ft elevation to drive even more people to participate in the program and inspire the global community to opt for refillable formats when able, to help reduce single-use plastic waste.

What is Sagarmatha Next anyway?

Sagarmatha Next is the world’s tallest upcycling design showroom, located at 3800m elevation, nestled in the Himalayan Mountain range. Sagarmatha is the Nepali name for Mount Everest, and means “Goddess of the Sky”.

Their center is located directly on the path to Everest Base Camp, conveniently intersecting tourists and using the power of art and design to inspire them to protect nature. They host international artist residencies , and split the profits from the art sales to support both the artists and the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee.

The installation was made from used tents scavenged from Everest Base Camp.

With over 60,000 tourists streaming in every year to visit Base Camp – we decided to build our installation with the ubiquitous yellow tents that had neared the end of their lives by cutting them into thin strips and knotting them down onto our metal structure. The bright yellow color would ensure that the installation would stand out like a sore thumb.

Since the closest road was over 3 days hike away, we only used structural materials that were available in the area.

Construction debris is common within Sagarmatha National Park due to the presence of many indigenous communities. For our art installation, we collaborated with local Nepali artists Roshan Mishra and Dipak Lama, who repurposed materials found in the area. They constructed the metal structure using discarded rebar and prayer flag poles, and fashioned nails from a rusted oil barrel

In an awe-inspiring place like Everest, the trash problem feels particularly acute.

Since everyone is coming here to experience nature, waste feels particularly out of place. It’s the perfect place to challenge everyone to rethink our culture of mass consumption and to recognize that so much work needs to be done if we want to protect this planet for ourselves and future generations to come.

The Carry-Me Back program alone is not going to solve this issue – but it is a first step, inviting everyone to get involved – so that hopefully when they go home to their busy cities, they remember what needs to be done next.

And for those of us who live in cities – the same problem exists at an even bigger scale. We’ve just gotten so good at ignoring it.

In our busy man-made concrete jungles filled with convenient trash collection and street cleaners, it’s easy to believe that trash just gets taken “away”.

That’s why Kiehl’s decided to commission a second art installation. This one, directly on the High Line in the heart of New York City during Earth Month – to highlight the importance of refillables.

There is no silver bullet to solving the plastic pollution problem but one thing we can do is #DontRebuyJustRefill when possible.

Working together with so many different partners who care about protecting our planet has been such a privilege.

It reminds me that it is only by working together do we stand a chance of defeating the single-use plastic problem, with each and every one of us bringing our unique strengths to the table to fight for what we care about.

Although we may live on opposite sides of the world, those who care about similar issues will find a way to work together – and there’s something so beautiful about that.

Media Requests

• Feel free to quote and publish the photos in your online publication (please credit & link back to the original). Specific Terms of Use can be found here.
• High-Rez press images, BTS, and more can be found in this dropbox link.
• Commercial requests and rights: suzy@suzyjohnston.com

Credits:

Everest Installation:

• Artist: Benjamin Von Wong
• Cinematography: Manuel Gussmann
• Artist Assistants: Dipak Lama
• Lead Producer: Roshan Mishra
• Production Support: Prakash Baraili, Subash Baraili, Biplove Lama, Angela Lama
• Special thanks to:
• Tommy Gustafsson – Sagarmatha Next for hosting us and helping to produce the installation
• Fredrik Estrom – ivar.studio for additional B-Roll footage.
• Agent: Suzy Johnston + Associates

New York Installation:

• Artist: Benjamin Von Wong
• In collaboration with  @Kiehls  – part of their #DontRebuyJustRefill campaign
• With the support of Earth Day and Friends of the High Line
• Technical Design: @design_by_grm
• Cinematography:  @ManuelGussmann 
• Plastic Collection:  @nycfairtradecoalition 
• Fabrication, Engineering, Installation, and Design: SFDS
• Engineering Drawings: Theta Consulting
• Volunteer Coordination: Suzanne Ventura / @Greeningfullife
• Volunteer Management: Sharon Stokes
• Special thanks to SIMS Recycling, Maison Jar, Pier 57, and Plugdin for location support
• End Credit Song:  @HilaTheEarth 
• Agent: Suzy Johnston + Associates
• Volunteers: Abby Curtis, Aileen Apuy, Aayush Baral, Alexa Del Rosario, Alicia Duvall, Ally Xiong, Amanda Beauchamp, Amy Zheng, Anchal, Andrea Fernandez, Angela Li, Anissa Benadrete, Arman Singhal, Ashley Giles, B Dominguez, Brittany Baginski, Celia Kutcher, Camy Mathlouthi, Carmen Shum, Caroline Wojtowicz, Catherine Schuller, Celestine Chong, Chaewon Lim, Cindi Clark, Cortina Lilley, Communal Sole Student Group, Cashonee Wimbush, Dauly Cuello, David Montini, Diane Chung, Dr. Kate Hallet, Eden Mili, Elena Calvo, East Side Community High School, Emily Perlman, Erin Forden, Faroz Mujir, Faith, Gina Keatley, Ghizlane Sabbahe, Geoffrey Guilcapi, Grace Bristow, Gretchen Young, Growing Up Green Charter School, Green and Blue Eco Care, Hansa Hatrote, Hailey Arango, Haris Kaminari, Hideka Minami, Hope Endrenyi, Illia But, Isabel Renjifo, Iz Haskel, Jasmine Le, Jacqueline Deprey, Janelle Adamska, Jahaira Catana, Jacquith ‘Raka’ Loney, Jillian Perko, Joe Leone, Julie Thibault-Dury, Julia Mesner, Jude Nicastro, Kamilia Camy, Kate Phillips, Kelsea Valentine, Kirsten Hrobsky, Leah Moss, Luciana Jaalouk, Llonice Strayhorn, Luz Martinez, Lovely Diala, Luise Philomena, Madina Rajapova, Mariah McKenzie, Margaux Koutros, Matthew Chavez, May Gong, Megan Geer, Megan Lau, Michael Lopez, Milena González, Molly Rose Levine, Myan Melendez, Nia Brewster, Naomi Montes, Navrose Bajwa, Naz Fisher, Peter Lee, Preston Blair, Ravi Varma, Rhee, Raymond Perdomo, Roxanne Jackson, Ruth Wang, Sean Leone, Sarah Eisner, Sham Mosher, Sophie Major, Soleil, Shivani Shukla, Stacey Kuffuor, Tara Hatzidakis, Taesha Okoasia, Truc Nguyen, Vivian Lin, Viola Tan, Weiyun Chen, Yelle Belle, Zoe Tank, Camilo Cardenas.

The post How I ended up in Everest building a monument against trash appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

Normally when I think about climate change – I feel an overwhelming sense of despair.

Earth Overshoot Day – the day we spend our carbon budget for the year – gets closer every single year. 

But last year, I discovered a glimmer of hope.

• A glimmer, based on indigenous wisdom, to sequester carbon into the ground with fire.
• A glimmer based in science, which has been the subject of tens of thousands of research papers over the last decade.
• A glimmer based on economics, which, with the help of the IRA in the US has become responsible for 89% of verified carbon removal credits in the entire history of the market.

The name of this material is Biochar and the moment I learned about it, I knew I had to find a way to make art with it.

So what is Biochar and how is it made?

Let’s start with Carbon Dioxide (CO2) – one of the greenhouse gases that is responsible for warming our planet.

When we burn organic material, let’s say a log on a campfire, that material is mostly made from carbon. As it burns, that Carbon (C) is exposed to Oxygen (O2) – and CO2 is formed.

However, if we burn that material in a low-oxygen environment (through a chemical process called Pyrolysis) then C, doesn’t meet O2… and all that’s left once the gases burn off is Carbon (C)!

That Carbon, created somewhere between 400-700 degrees Celcius, is called Biochar and it not only sequesters carbon, it can be used to rehabilitate the soil, make it more drought-resistant, host micro-organisms, absorb toxins, and improve yields.

It’s basically magic – helping with both climate adaptation and climate mitigation.

(Check out my Instagram video reel here explaining Biochar!)

But wait. Why burn material?!

Humanity produces an ungodly amount of organic material waste.

Think of all the leftover wood inside of a lumber mill, residue from farming (think coffee beans, rice husks, corn stalks!), or even your own food and yard waste.

If we’re lucky, that leftover material decomposes naturally, releasing carbon slowly into the atmosphere as it degrades.

But since we’re releasing over 35 Billion tons of CO2 every single year, we need to find a way to interrupt the natural carbon cycle of decomposition that releases even more CO2 into the air.

The easiest way to do that? You got it. Biochar.

And how does one go from learning about Biochar to making Art with Biochar?

After meeting Kathleen Draper, the author of Burn: Using Fire to Cool the Earth at a conference in DC, I ended up attending the Biochar Academy in Upstate NY.

There, I met 40 biochar entrepreneurs from over 20 countries – one of whom was Khom and Nui – the proud owners of a bamboo farm and biochar operation called Wong Phai.

Although they were small, they were super enthusiastic about the idea of collaborating, even though nobody had ever tried to create a large-scale installation like this out of biochar before.

I proposed three different ideas – and of course, they went with the most complicated one: A 6m tall giant phoenix, rising from the ashes, made from 4 tons of carbon, rehabilitating and healing the soil around it.

To build the phoenix, we first had to figure out how to manipulate the Biochar.

The goal of most Biochar operations is to grind up the biochar so that it can be easily blended back into the ground.

What we wanted though, were long brittle sticks of Biochar of different sizes, so that we could use them as feathers for different parts of their body.

To do that, Biochar had to be made using a double-barrel retort with bamboo packed as tightly as possible to minimize warping and bending. From there, the Biochar, although brittle, was strong enough to be drilled and tied together.

We found that although metal wires worked, recycled electrical wire was the best to hold our long stick of biochar together without cracking the material.

We then had to build the skeleton using steel wire and mesh.

The next important piece of the puzzle was ensuring that we created a solid skeleton, capable of holding up the entire installation.

At over 2 stories tall and extremely top-heavy, creating this art installation was no joke!

Thankfully, we had a young engineer, Teerasak Sirijan (First) & fabricators Anon Passada and Attasit Kamulsuk to help engineer a metal structure capable of supporting all of the weight.

The shape and structure of the phoenix were all bent into place by hand using metal wire, subsequently wrapped in a wire mesh, and covered by a dark black mesh.

As far as I know, this is the world’s tallest Biochar installation.

I love making large and audacious art projects – because it shows what’s possible.

With a climate solution like Biochar that desperately needs more adoption and awareness, I dream that this project catalyzes and inspires home artists and artisans to explore Biochar as a creative material.

Whether you make your own or collaborate with the thousands of emerging biochar entrepreneurs, I hope to see larger, more ambitious, and surprising biochar projects.

What I love most about Biochar is that it is accessible, hyperlocal, and apolitical.

Regardless if you have a backyard or millions of dollars to create a Biochar reactor – everyone can participate in the Biochar revolution. Just look up a tutorial online on how to make your own biochar and you’ll see how popular it’s gotten!

For biochar to be an effective carbon sink, you can’t transport it across great distances, otherwise, you’ve burned more carbon than you’ve sequestered in the ground. This means that Biochar will always be hyperlocal and regional – helping to promote rural economies and underprivileged communities.

Last but not least, Biochar brings people together from the left and the right. It is one of the only spaces in the environmental movement where you’ll find both sides eagerly working together as allies. The right is interested in how this technology can be used as an effective waste management tool that can increase both yields and profits, while the left is interested in how we can use this technology to combat global warming.

Overall, it’s a win, win, win.

If you loved this project, consider funding our friends at Wong Phai to help you remove some carbon from this planet!

Our friends at Wong Phai who helped us build this phoenix, are a small but mighty team that can sequester over 140 tons of Biochar, every single month.

If you want to both fight climate change and support a small local business – please consider a monthly donation to their work here, through their carbon verification partner Planboo.

Their registered Carbon Sink Manager, Planboo is an accredited institution that tracks the entire biochar process from start to finish! Their registered technology guarantees that the biochar you subscribe for actually gets put into the ground!

Every little bit counts. As it becomes more popular, prices will go down! We need your support to accelerate change today!

Media Requests

• Feel free to quote and publish the photos in your online publication (please credit & link back to the original). Specific Terms of Use can be found here.
• High-Rez press images, BTS, and more can be found in this dropbox link.
• Commercial requests and rights: suzy@suzyjohnston.com

Credits

The post This phoenix is made from the average human’s carbon footprint (every year) appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

While it’s been an honor to build these giant installations globally, I’ve always dreamed of making a more accessible version so that students and classrooms could build their own and become young champions for change.

I’m extremely excited to share accessible art – that can build community, raise awareness, and advocate for change.

Thanks to a partnership with my friends at Students Rebuild, the Solgaard Nyx Foundation, and the amazing design work of Wintercroft – we’re proud to unveil with you a Cardboard version of the Giant Plastic Tap that ANYONE can easily download!!

If you know any students, teachers, non-profits or organizations absolutely hate plastics, please make sure to send them these templates – so they can join the #ExtraordinaryEarthProject and help to #TurnOffThePlasticTap

Click HERE to download the files for free!

Curious to see what you’re downloading? Here’s a little video that we put together!

The post A Cardboard Giant Plastic Tap – free for Students! appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

Did you know that 800 laptops worth of Electronic Waste are thrown away every second?

The #1 reason: Exorbitant repair costs that keep people buying new.

For decades, big tech companies have been fighting to restrict access to affordable repairs – shutting down small independent repair shops and keeping us addicted to buying new.

So when I was offered the chance to transform a space in Arcadia Earth‘s Toronto Exhibit – I decided to create an installation that would make the boring topic of “Right To Repair” a little more unforgettable.

The Right to Repair movement is fighting to break the corporate monopoly on the repair market.

It demands that companies provide affordable parts, tools, and documentation to independent shops and product owners – allowing us to hold on to our precious products longer.

70% of the world’s toxic waste in landfills comes from our electronics, and although some of that could be resolved by better recycling, we also need more sustainable and repairable products so that the next generation doesn’t end up being enslaved to a giant E-Waste Generator.

Here’s how we did it:

BTS video sponsored by 5DayDeal, Shot and Edited by Manuel Gussmann

Over 5,000 lbs of circuit boards, cables, and computers had to be sorted, dismantled, and recombined.

We received 1,500 lbs of cables, 800 lbs of motherboards, 800 lbs of. keyboards, 1500 lbs of computers, and 800 lbs of household appliances from Uni-Recycle – a local e-waste recycling facility that collects electronic waste for free. In most major cities around the world, free e-waste collection services are available to keep them out of landfill!

Like a puzzle, every piece had to be installed in sequence.

David Lister from CNCcutting.ca helped us to break apart our design so that it could be pre-assembled, transported, and re-installed on-site with the help of a friend and local fabricator Dian Carlo.

The bulk of the grunt work was done with the help of my parents and dozens of volunteers.

We painstakingly organized, sorted, and attached thousands of keyboards, circuit boards, mice, and cables to the installation, one tiny piece at a time.

While over 50m of LED lights were hidden all around the installation.

Tyler from Eclectic Lighting Design helped us plan, design, order, and ship thousands of dollars worth of COB LED lights to Toronto while Troy Strum helped us solder, install, and program them. My favorite part? Learning how to solder the lights myself, and collaborating with my dad to hand build our own custom side lights out of upcycled acrylic!

BTS video sponsored by 5DayDeal, Shot and Edited by Manuel Gussmann

Our concept had very humble beginnings.

Everything began with a SketchUp model created with the help of my girlfriend Dana Waldman. We initially envisioned people, sitting on a giant throne, ruling over an empire of Electronic Waste. We then enlisted the help of concept engineer Jeremy Lizandier, who helped me evolve the installation into something both doable and epic – before toning things down a little because of costs, regulations, and safety.

And not everything worked the way we wanted it to.

Stephie, a volunteer, spent hours stenciling out a giant “Right To Repair” that we painted onto the stairs. Unfortunately, we found that it distracted too much from the final installation and went for a more subtle call to action instead.

But we eventually figured out how to create a piece anyone could photograph – regardless of how cheap of a camera they owned.

One of these was shot on a phone. Can you tell which?

Left: shot on iPhone, and Right: Shot on a Sony A7r-IV

This piece is more than a photo-op. It’s an entire experience that will be up for an entire year! (Tickets here)

Many easter eggs are hidden within the piece; the soft voice and words of Amber Herzog which can only be heard when seated on the installation- inviting people to buy more and upgrade quicker, reminiscent of the toxic advertising industry we face every day. A sound-activated broken mirror greets you as you survey the empire of electronic waste you rule over, inviting you to reconsider your role and reliance on technology.  Augmented reality QR codes hide within the room so that you can scan and familiarize yourself with how you too can get involved in the Right to Repair movement. To top it all off, two immersive and ethereal soundtracks designed by Dave Hodge help set the mood and tone.

Even if you can’t visit the piece, I hope you get involved!

The Right to Repair movement is picking up steam, with powerful legislation being introduced by cities, and supported by brands – and your participation too, can make a difference!

If you’re in Canada:

• Read more about Equiterre’s fantastic Right to Repair report
• Sign the petition calling for Right to Repair at the Federal level!

If you’re in the US:

• Find your state on Repair.org

And of course… if you ever pass through Toronto, make sure to visit our art installation.

It will be up for one whole year at Arcadia Earth in Downtown Toronto! You can buy a ticket here!

Media Requests

• Feel free to quote and publish the photos in your online publication (please credit & link back to the original). Specific Terms of Use can be found here.
• High-Rez press images, BTS, and more can be found in this dropbox link. 
• Commercial requests and rights: suzy@suzyjohnston.com

Special thanks to:

• Uni-recycle for sponsoring almost 3000 lbs of electronic waste for the installation
• Jerem Lizandier – for 3D modeling and design
• David Lister from CNC cutting for the laser-cut, engineering, and fabrication
• Dian Carlo from @IheartMachinist for build and fabrication
• Tyler Rothermel from Eclectic Light Design for preparing and shipping all of our LED light strips
• Troy Strum for all the lighting design.
• Amber Herzog for her voice and words hidden behind the throne, sound engineered by Eric Sherbon at Maximus Media
• Dave Hodge for the soundtrack of the entire room
• My parents – for all the meal prepping, snacks, tools, and fabrication support.
• The team at Arcadia Earth for helping us with all the site logistics.
• 5DayDeal for sponsoring our BTS content.
• My agent Suzy Johnston + Associates for producing the entire installation.

Volunteers: Phil Cha, Samantha Wu, Helen Leung-Regalado, Brian de Rivera Simon, Amanda Michele, Darshel Diaz, Susanne Larner, Krista Dalby, Youssef Wahby, Stephie Reimer, Lauren Silvera, Meghan & Marlea Hurst, Jeanette Kho, Sing Wong, Suzy Johnston, Tristan Lim, Natasha Sakoor, Tyler Hitchcock, Newton Yee, Dayeon Kim, Ahmed Wahby, Hayoung Lee, Dana Waldman, Alexander Gierholz

The post Unveiling the E-Waste Generator – An immersive experience demanding the Right to Repair appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

Over the last few years, the rise of fast fashion brands like H&M and Zara has been rapidly overtaken by ultra-fast fashion brands like Shein, with anywhere between 2,000 and 10,000 designs added to their website Every. Single. Day.

Despite more and more brands using words like eco-friendly, recyclable, and sustainable – most of it is just greenwashing.

That’s why I teamed up with the Kunstverein in Ludwigsburg, Germany – to change up the conversation.

To bring this project to life, an entire truckload of clothes was collected.

Karlshöher Gebrauchtwarenladen, a social enterprise in Ludwigsburg, Germany, that gives jobs to the underprivileged, receives this many clothes in just three days.

We used refurbished wood and nylon fishnets to support our clothing.

Leonie, an apprentice carpenter from Rikker volunteered with us for almost ten days – building, designing and adapting to the project.

Before slowly covering every tower with a different shade and color.

The next few days were spent looking through all the beautiful items of clothing we had collected – sorting and organizing first by colors, then by shade before hanging them into our structure without damaging them – so they could eventually be returned when we sunset the art installation.

Putting together this installation was like a thrifting adventure, never knowing what we would discover next.

Even organic clothing has a huge footprint. A single organic cotton t-shirt uses 2500L of water. Re-using is the most sustainable thing we can do, and it can be fun too!

To help us sort through the massive volume of clothing – we needed the help of local students.

Dozens of teenagers from various schools came to help us sort, organize and place the clothing on the installation while also taking the chance to learn about the fashion industry’s impact on the environment.

These students were no different than the 170 Million children employed in the textile industry, Fashion is not just an environmental crisis; it’s a humanitarian one too.

Interestingly, the gallery space with the lights off, bars at the windows, and an eerie smoky atmosphere gave us the perfect atmosphere, imitating a sweatshop.

Used doesn’t mean boring. All our tools and props were borrowed, including this  $20,000 lighting kit from Broncolor!

I have found, over the years, that renting or borrowing is often easier than owning. It’s cheaper, more eco-friendly, and it invites other community partners to participate and work together with us to bring projects to life!

Too many companies are trying to fix the greenwashing machine by making less harmful products – but we already have enough clothing on shelves today to last us for the next 100 years!

Sustainability is not just about buying less. It’s also about navigating enoughness within ourselves and society at large.

To drive the message home, we hid little easter eggs all around the installation, including statistics and a big red button.

If the button below is pressed, the entire washing machine – mounted on a fitness wobble board starts vibrating angrily in response!

Buying used, swapping, or trading can be frustrating, or it can be fun. We just need to find the right community and tools.

With online platforms like Poshmark and Thredup popping up to make thrifting easier than ever and local clothing swaps being hosted left and right, give it a shot! You might be surprised!

Media Requests

• Feel free to quote and publish the photos in your online publication (please credit & link back to the original). Specific Terms of Use can be found here.
• High-Rez press images, BTS, and more can be found in this dropbox link. 
• Commercial requests and rights: suzy@suzyjohnston.com

Credits

• Construction: Leonie Gunsch – Rikker, Holzbau GmbH
• Cinematography: Manuel Gussmann
• Production: Birgit Holzwarth, Harald Jahnke, Luisa Knuth; Kunstverein Ludwigsburg
• Clothing: Karlshöhe, Gebrauchtwarenladen
• Printing: ASSOZIATION Bergmann GmbH
• Lettering: Tina Fernandez
• Graphic Design: Jessica Widmeier
• Photo Assistants: Andreas Schlierf, Manuel Olze, Marc Hörrmann
• Lighting: Broncolor
• School Classes:
  • Mrs.Udroiu & Mrs.Akrimi / Aktivierungshilfe der Caritas
  • Mrs.Geckeler / Grade 6&7 / Schillergymnasium Ludwigsburg
  • Mrs.Klemp & Mrs.Luib / Grade 7 /Hanfbachschule Möglingen
  • Mrs.Nonnenmacher / Grade 4 / Osterholzschule Ludwigsburg
• Volunteers:
  • Annrike Udroiu, Nathalie, Antonia, Marlene & Theo Haak, Claudia Goepferich, Mirjam Kern, Jochen Siegele, Lotte Jahnke, Sissi Ban, Uli Jahnke, Simon Jahnke, Annegret Gussmann, Lena Dernai, Felix Stillhammer, Ananiya Khumalo, Urs Recher, Bernhard, Toni, Liam, Hanna, Charlotte
• Models:
  • Boat: Birgit Holzwarth, Luisa Knuth, Sashiko
  • Sewing & Fishing: Josephine Priebe, Angelos Tsakiris, Kolja Holzwarth
  • Mechanics Andreas Schlierf, Manuel Olze, Marc Hörrmann
• Funded by: Stadt Ludwigsburg Regierungspräsidium Stuttgart Wüstenrot Stiftung

The post A Truckload of Fashion Greenwashing appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

This isn’t your typical art piece that you’d find in a museum. It’s a giant, working machine that shows the toxic relationship between fossil fuels and plastic production – and I decided to set it on fire with my friends.

In March 2022, 1500 delegates from 193 different countries came together to announce that they would start working on a Global Plastics Treaty.

One year later, at the INC-2 treaty negotiations, fossil fuel-producing countries have already banded together to weaken the treaty – by focusing on recycling rather than imposing limits on plastic production.

99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels – and unless we get plastic production under control, we won’t be able to stop the world from burning.

To capture these images, we had firebreathers and pyrotechnicians breathe fire on and around the Perpetual Plastic Machine

Using a combination of long and short exposures, we coordinated flames with the help of @andrey_das @mickeydisplay @burno.burn @sydcracheurdefeu and @even_hahochmah. The cops only passed by once.

The entire installation was built from scratch in a warehouse with the help of Greenpeace Germany.

A rockstar team of producers, fabricators, electrical engineers, and volunteers came together for over a month to bring my vision to life: A custom, kinetic, and creaking oil rig that intersected a plastic production line to form a giant red “X” calling for a stop to virgin plastic production.

And unveiled before the Musée d’Orsay at INC-2 in Paris, where the Global Plastic Treaty Negotiations were happening.

Every 10 minutes, over 150 people would walk by, stare and wonder what this creaking monstrosity was all about. In that same amount of time, over 180,000 tons of plastic was produced.

Unfortunately, fossil-fuel-producing countries only want to focus on the visible and obvious problem of plastic waste management.

Because plastic waste in the ocean is universally condemned, the plastic industry tries to redirect everyone’s energy toward waste management. But plastic production leaves a trail of pollutants in its wake, similar to the light trails left behind by our curtain of fire.

But time is running out to put restrictions and limitations on the less visible threat of pollutants released throughout the entire lifecycle of plastic: Extraction, Production, and Disposal.

This is why scientists, Greenpeace, and thousands of other NGOs are demanding a strong and ambitious Global Plastics Treaty, and you, too, can add your signature to the list!

The Global Plastic Treaty is a fantastic opportunity to protect the planet for future generations and cripple big oil and big plastics in one fell swoop.

Regardless of which country you’re in, make sure you let your voice be heard!

It matters now more than ever before.

Media Requests

• Feel free to quote and publish the photos in your online publication (please credit & link back to the original). Specific Terms of Use can be found here.
• High-Rez press images, BTS, and more can be found in this dropbox link. 
• Commercial requests and rights: suzy@suzyjohnston.com
• Greenpeace International press desk, +31 (0) 20718 2470, pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org (24 hours)

Credits:

Concept: Benjamin Von Wong
Production Coordinator: Sebastian Könnecke
Lead Fabricator: Noel Rasch
Warehouse Operations: Hannes von Coler
Electrical Engineering: Serdal Erdal
Prototype Design: Dana Waldman, Jeremy Lizandier

Greenpeace Support Staff:
Freia Hellenkamp, Florian Grau, Viola Wohlgemuth, Yannik Preußner, Robert Böse, Capucine Dayen

List of volunteers
Sophie Regending, Lina Sandersfeld, Antje Trauboth, Laura Koppe, Mathis Romp, Tabea Schüssler, Gesche Sienknecht, Julika. S, Bolle, Charlie Löbner, Kea Frerichs, Frank Weiße, Celine M Suiter, Julia Mesner Burdge

Pyrotechnicians
@Andrey_das @Mickeydisplay @Burno.burn @Sydcracheurdefeu @Even_hahochmah

BTS Video: @lebonreflex, @barbas.petros

BTS Fire Photos: @Yann_Delcambre

The post I Set My Art Installation on Fire: Stopping the Perpetual Plastic Machine appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

A single google search? That takes 1080 Joules of energy*.
Streaming an hour of Netflix? 288,000 Joules*.
One Bitcoin transaction? A mindboggling 6,995,000,000 Joules.*

Bitcoin is an energy monster, burning a ton of fossil fuels – but it could disappear overnight if someone designed the right software update. Ethereum did it, why can’t Bitcoin?

But before that can happen, more people need to know about the problem – so I built a giant skull with laser eyes out of electronic waste to make some noise.

Here’s how I did it, and what I learned along the way:

Tldr: Bitcoin’s bad for the environment, and you can help it change.
Help us raise awareness! Links to press images here.
Looking for our Midjourney Skull Remix Tutorial? You can find it here.
Have an iPhone and want to play with our AR model for free? Check it out here.

Meet the 11-foot skull we built to terminate Bitcoin’s impact on climate change.

Bitcoin uses more energy than many countries and consumes about twice as much electricity as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple COMBINED. In the last five years, Bitcoin energy usage has already increased by 100x, and unless we fix the problem soon, it’ll grow into a massive problem by the time my nephew grows up to be a young man.

This giant skull was built using wood, recycled styrofoam, and over 300 pieces of Electronic Waste.

My friend and mechanical engineer Jeremy teamed up with fabricators Lana and Joel to fill our CNC-cut wooden puzzle with used industrial styrofoam and hundreds of pieces of electronic waste.

The E-Waste came to us in 6 giant pallets, donated by a local nonprofit called Unirecycle.

Since Bitcoin Mining generates over 30,000 Tonnes of Electronic Waste every single year, covering the piece in circuit boards made a lot of sense. This meant manually sorting, organizing, and fitting each and every piece onto our skull.

With 1000 human hours of work, we brought the “Skull of Satoshi” to life in a huge abandoned warehouse.

Did you know? Bitcoin miners have started buying old coal power plants. To highlight the connection between fossil fuels and Bitcoin Mining – we got permission from Demolition company Delsan Aim to shoot in one of their buildings slated for demolition and used long tube lights to give it a dystopian cyberpunk vibe.

These are the suits we’re trying to reach. Institutional investors supporting an energy-devouring Bitcoin:

Sony A7r-IV with a 16-35mm f2.8 | Nanlite Pavotube 30x | 1/25th Sec, f4, ISO 800Since these groups have invested billions of dollars into Bitcoin, their opinions matter. “If groups like Fidelity Investments decided to withhold support for Bitcoin until it is more aligned with their climate commitments, they could help create more demand for a more environmentally friendly Bitcoin.

The other is the Bitcoin community – often easily identified by their “laser eye” profile pictures.

Using a couple red fairy lights and some tape, I created some real-world laser eyes for my volunteer models to wear.

They too, need to create demand for a more sustainable Bitcoin.

Since Bitcoin is truly decentralized, a substantial code change can only happen if the majority of the community supports the decision. This means that they too, need to signal their support for a less energy-intensive code.

Over the next few months, this giant skull will travel and campaign for change.

Greenpeace has offered to take the Skull of Satoshi on tour, where they will protest in different places to build awareness. Our engineer designed it to be fully portable. That’s why we created it to break apart and roll around!

It’ll travel with its own smoke machine and power supply that works when its below freezing!

We used a Homepower 2 battery pack capable of powering 2 smoke machines simultaneously and all the lights, making it far more eco-friendly and silent than if it used a gas-powered generator!

If the everyday person can study and understand Bitcoin’s impact on the environment, we can build momentum for change!

Bitcoin is complicated. No doubt about it – but instead of being scared of its complexity, we need more people to lean in, understand the situation, and demand change. Please share this campaign far and wide, and create your own remixes!

Media Requests

• Feel free to quote and publish the photos in your online publication (please credit & link back to the original). Specific Terms of Use can be found here.
• High-Rez press images, BTS, and more can be found in this dropbox link. 
• Commercial requests and rights: suzy@suzyjohnston.com

Help us draw attention to this issue by creating your own art remixes to raise awareness!!

If this campaign resonated with you, feel free to create your own remixes of the Skull of Satoshi using this video tutorial created by Manu.Vision. Use your creativity and help us spread awareness!

Credits:

• Creative Director / Photographer / Video Editor: Von Wong
• Campaign Collaborator: GreenpeaceUSA
• Lead Fabricator: Elana Novali
• Support Fabricator: Joel Masters
• Engineering Design: Jeremy Lizandier
• E-Waste partners: Unirecycle
• Location: Delsan Aim
• Snow Removal: Pelouse MD
• Lighting Assistant: Tristan Gauvreau
• BTS photography: Talisa Hernandez, Francois Le Nguyen
• BTS videographers: Andy Son, Johnny Miodini, Sam Lafreniere, Ray Arzaga, Alex St-Jean
• Video Script Support: Brenton Zola

• Volunteers: Lisette Ladouceur, Giovanna G, Joanie Pépin, Claude Campagna Lupien, Ruuka, Anne-Marie Coulombe, Théo Chauvirey, Nathan Taylor,
  Jessika Chiasson, Clara Cloutier, Guillaume Briand, Laura Francois, Julien-Carl Dubois-Lafaille, Pauline Le Bouter, Sing Wong, Ann Valence, Kim Gingras, Anne T, Dana Waldman, Ashley Azouri, Olivier Caron, Stephanie Francois, Alison Wong, Kody Cheung, Tommy Cheung, Jeanette Kho
• Special thanks to Gi Quo Vadis for the studio space!

The post I built an 11-foot skull covered in E-Waste to expose Bitcoin’s Impact on Climate Change appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

It served as a powerful and persistent reminder of how fragile our existence was.

But when it comes to climate change, a similar symbol was never envisioned – until now.

Created for #COP15 – The once-in-a-decade UN Wildlife and Biodiversity Conference – the Extinction Thermometer is an art installation designed by Benjamin Von Wong and hand-sculpted by Dana Waldman to highlight the connection between Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss.

Over 20 skulls were hand-carved over the course of two weeks.

Embedded within the #ExtinctionThermometer are the bones of keystone species from all across North America we stand to lose – the Caribou, Grizzly, Sea Otter, Prairie Dog, Moose, Mountain Lion, Wolf, Snowshoe Hare, and Beaver – and right at the top, you can find the skulls of humans too – because we are a part of nature and can’t live without it. 

Our giant thermometer was built from used styrofoam insulation and neon LED lights

We used a dog dome for the bulb of our thermometer, and dust collection tubes for the top. On the insides, we embedded section-programmable LED lights that allowed us to create a transition between red and white. And a final layer of red Christmas wrapping paper and aluminum foil helped us to create the ominously glowing installation.

The illusion of withering nature was created using live moss that slowly fades to grey.

Using a layer of non-toxic sculpting epoxy, we gradually transitioned from lush green moss into a pale and hard rocky texture to highlight the threats of a rapidly changing climate as the temperature rises beyond 1.5°C.

The extinction thermometer is not meant to be a symbol of fear.

Instead, it’s meant to be a symbol of hope that reminds us of how our lives are intricately connected to nature.

A recent study by the One Earth Foundation shows that if we can protect and restore 50% of the land and the oceans by 2030, we still have time to reverse the worst impacts of climate change. 

Hopefully, this piece, currently located in the Grand Quay of Montreal during COP15 helps to spark and support the urgent need to protect our planet.

• Installation art by Von Wong and Dana Waldman
• This project was incubated at the Activism.Studio – A non-profit laboratory unlocking the potential of art to power movements and shift culture.
• Special thanks to our super-star volunteers who helped us bring this vision to life: Lisette Ladouceur, Joanie Pepin, Sheena, Talisa Hernandez, Wesley Wize, Andy Son, Tritam Chu, Sing Wong, Jeanette Kho, Alison Wong, Tommy Cheung, Kody Cheung, Francois L Nguyen, Christine Law, Anne T, Ruuka, Anne L. Nguyen, Deedz Kaade, Elena Novali, Tristan Gauvreau, Ray Argaza

• And of course, our financial sponsors, who helped bring this entire piece to life:

Media Requests

• Feel free to quote and publish the photos in your online publication (please credit & link back to the original). Specific Terms of Use can be found here.
• High-Rez press images, BTS and more can be found in this dropbox link. 
• Commercial requests and rights: suzy@suzyjohnston.com
• Read more about the project at extinctionthermometer.com

The post 10 foot tall Extinction Thermometer highlighting the connection between climate change and biodiversity loss. appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

After throwing many different ideas around, we finally settled on making a diorama – a three-dimensional charcoal drawing made from 22 different pieces of paper, drawn with the help of 16-year-old illustrator Cadence Lark.

After hundreds of hours of planning, building, and filming – we came up with this short film that I think does the best job of explaining what climate equity is, why it’s important and what we’re doing wrong.

Script written with the help of Brenton Zola

Putting this together was like building your own puzzle

We started off with rough drafts on scrap paper to test out what the layout might look like and what size the entire piece should be.

All elements had to be carefully scaled in photoshop

With over 100 independent layers in photoshop, figuring out which elements belonged on which layer was a challenge. We drew out the layers digitally on an iPad before scaling them back into photoshop so that they could be traced out on a large television.

While Cadence focused on drawing, I focused on cutting.

From there, Cadence spent hours drawing the various elements out by hand while I focused on cutting everything out… without cutting off any parts.

Within a week, the entire space was a total mess.

What had started off as a beautifully clean and pristine loft soon became engulfed by scraps of paper and pieces of charcoal.

Meanwhile, Mike, Cadence’s dad, helped us build a box for the paper.

To ensure that the paper would stand upright, we had to dig groves into the sides of the wood with enough space to add some long LED strips. The total dimension ended up being 6 feet long and 2 feet high.

Then, it was time to put it all together.

To make the diorama feel three-dimensional, we had to place LED lights in between every layer. Different layers had different heights, so the LED lights had to be carefully placed in the right places too.

Finally, it was time to make the short film – which meant rebuilding the art installation over and over again to build the different scenes.

Diving into the art installation with graphs, like those found in the Carbon Almanac, was what made this project particularly visually interesting. It is the combination of art and data that makes for good storytelling.

Why go through all this effort?

Well, here’s a vignette of some of the research that Eric‘s been working on that I used to make this piece. It’s super interesting, but it’s a little dry and requires a lot of words to explain. I think art helps to ease explanations like the one below, into something a little more digestible.

” In the graph below, each dot is a US-based company or organization that has received funding in the past 5 yrs and each bubble is a climate theme. The redder the category, the more they’re backed by Venture, while the greyer the category, the more they are Philanthropically funded.

Themes like Renewable Energy and Electric Vehicles receive over 78% of venture funding, while those that have a heavy focus on Equity are left to fend for themselves with philanthropic dollars. Right now, the private sector isn’t giving the billions of people on the bottom of the pyramid the opportunity to help us in the climate crisis.”

For those who want to watch a video instead that explains how all this came to life, check out this video here

I spent over three weeks in the Elysian Sanctuary bringing this project to life. Special thanks to Jess for hosting us!

In Conclusion

The goal of this piece is to show how so much of the chaos being caused by climate change is preventable.

Within our deeply interconnected world, disruptions in one part of the world have rolling consequences – regardless of how wealthy we are. Only offering climate solutions to the wealthiest 1% not only isn’t fair, but it also isn’t going to work.

By enrolling and empowering the world’s most vulnerable to be more resilient against climate change, we can be more effective at fighting climate change together and preventing the worst from happening.

The first step in bringing about change is awareness – and I hope you can join me in sharing this project far and wide so that those in positions of power can start re-allocating capital more effectively.

Credits:

Creative Direction: Von Wong
Illustrations: Cadence Lark
Script: Eric Berlow + Brenton Zola
Data: Eric Berlow + David Banks
Location: Elysian Sanctuary

Media Center for Press and Licensing – Terms of Use

Feel free to share the photos and videos far and wide to help spread the word!

You can find digital use high-res photos here.

• Commercial, print, licensing, and installation requests: suzy@suzyjohnston.com
• Interview requests: ben@vonwong.com

The post Explaining Climate Equity with Paper and Charcoal appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

And with the United Nations Environmental Assembly coming together in February 2022 to discuss a global plastic treaty, we need to put pressure on world leaders to get the situation under control!

As an artist and activist, I’m always looking for exciting ways to make the boring problem of plastic pollution more interesting. I’ve created campaigns from 168,000 plastic straws, 18,000 plastic cups, and 10,000 plastic bottles. But those projects only raised awareness for individual objects and never pointed to the root cause of the problem: Plastic production.

I knew that I needed to level up my projects, but I just needed to find the right partner willing to take a chance on a brand new big idea first. 

Lucky for me, the Embassy of Canada in France accepted my proposal to build an art installation to raise awareness for plastics. This was my chance to create more than a piece of art. It was my chance to create a symbol inviting the world to #TurnOffThePlasticTap

TLDR:

• For press and social assets Click Here

Our faucet was built from used ventilation ducts scavenged from a building that was about to be demolished

I wanted to embody the spirit of reuse for this entire project. That meant finding folks that believed in the same! The kind folks at Delsan-Aim provided us with access to a building that was about to be demolished so that we could scavenge pieces of ventilation duct to bring our art installation to life.

It was then cut, painted, and adapted to fit a manual forklift

We found a local fabrication shop called Gaufab Inc to help us transform over 200lbs of ventilation duct into a giant faucet that would fit safely onto the SLC-24 – a forklift that could be found almost anywhere in the world.

So that we could take over the entire city with plastics.

Almost every single piece of plastic that has ever been created still exists on this planet. If we don’t do anything about it, it is my nephew’s generation, and every generation after that will have to live with the consequences. 

The plastics were held together with rope made from plastic bottles

My dad helped me build a small tool out of wood, and a razor blade with the help of a youtube video that we found online after my friend and fellow artist Aurora Robson recommended it to us. She told us that PET plastics could hold a ton of weight if we kept them thick enough. She wasn’t wrong!

Each piece had to be sorted, poked, and threaded together

With the help of dozens of volunteers, we spent over a week organizing and preparing the plastics at the headquarters of YAM, a local community organization dedicated to protecting the environment. 

So we could easily set up and tear down the installation within a single day, and photograph it in multiple locations!

Millions of tons of unrecyclable and contaminated plastic waste are exported to poorer countries every year. These countries don’t have the facilities to manage the waste, and it often bleeds straight back into our environment. Although it’s hard to do, the best thing we can do is reduce our plastic consumption.

We used smoke and mirrors to light up our faucet

Since the installation was so tall, the cheapest and most efficient way to light up our faucet was using mirrors provided by our volunteers. To help diffuse the light and add a sense of magic on location, we used a simple bee smoker loaded with organic hay (more environmentally friendly than running a generator!) 

And a collection of flashes to light up the models.

Volunteers brought whatever lighting they had to the project for us to use. We used everything from speedlights to Godox strobes to top-of-the-line Broncolor move packs. We ended up frankensteining three triggers one on top of the other to trigger all of our lights! 

All that remained, was for us to wait for the sun and clouds to get into the perfect position

With more than a truckload of plastic flowing into the ocean every 60 seconds, we need to take our heads out of the sand and start looking beyond beach cleanups. Unless we start by turning off the plastic tap, the problem will only get worst – regardless of how many cleanups we perform!

We found single-use boat wraps to hide our forklift

Every winter, boats here get shrink-wrapped to protect them against the elements. We reached out to a boat repair shop and asked them if we could recover their tarps and they were more than happy to give them to us. They told us that local waste management facilities can’t recycle them. 

And used guide ropes and a wooden foundation to stabilize the faucet

To ensure that the faucet would be level, my friend Guillaume helped us build a small foundation from upcycled wood that we could place under the forklift. Gaufab installed eyelets into the faucet so we could tie thin matte black guide ropes at a 45-degree angle to guarantee it wouldn’t blow over with a heavy gust of wind. 

It would take us five hours to set up the faucet, and two hours to capture the perfect shot.

Over 2/3rds of the world’s plastics end up in landfills like this one. Finding access to a landfill was a challenge, but we managed to find a local family-owned company called Groupe Bellemare to help us out. They recycle 75% of the waste they receive into new products, with the landfill reserved exclusively for materials too hard to recycle.

Hundreds of volunteers contributed thousands of hours to bring this project to life

Volunteers came from all walks of life. Young and old. Friends and strangers. Some spent hours helping while others like my parents spent weeks! One thing is for sure, this project would never have happened without the help of so many rockstars. If you want to participate in a future project, please drop me a line!

But this is just the beginning! We’re inviting everyone to help spread awareness! (Closed)

If you want to help us spread awareness, head over here to see how you can help! If you are an artist or creative that would like to participate, join us in creating a remix of the Giant Plastic Tap between the 4th of October and the 4th of November which automatically enters you into a $10,000 prize pool! (Direct instructions to enter here) If you need some inspiration, check out and share some of the amazing work that other artists have created so far! (Find their work in our media center or follow them on Instagram here!) 

The Giant Plastic Tap is touring worldwide!

• Learn more on how you can rent one or commission your own at sjareps.com

Media Center for Press and Licensing – Terms of Use

Feel free to share photos of the Giant Plastic Tap far and wide to help spread the word! Note that the copyright and all rights in all content is owned by Benjamin Von Wong and (if applicable) contributors who submitted work as part of the #TurnOffThePlasticTap campaign (“Contributor Works”).

You can find digital use high-res photos, behind-the-scenes, Instagram reels, and more by following the links below: 

• Individuals, NGOs, Non-Profits, and Small Businesses (under 5 employees) – get free access to all the files here. 
• Journalists/Media – get free access to all the files here. 
• Larger Businesses (over 5 employees) – get free access to all the files here. 
• Commercial, print, licensing, and installation requests: suzy@suzyjohnston.com
• Interview requests: ben@vonwong.com

#TurnOffThePlasticTap is a Von Wong Production represented by Suzy Johnston + Associates

Legal support provided by Dipchand LLP

Credits:

In Collaboration with: The Canadian Embassy in France

• Collection and Storage of Plastics: YAM (Y’a QuelQu’un l’Aut’bord du Mur), SDC Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
• Used Ventilation Duct: Delsan Demolitions (ht: Natalie Voland) 
• Locations: Tomra Recycling, Sepaq (Oka), Ultradepot & Groupe Bellemare 
• Faucet Construction: Team Gaufab Inc.
• Gear Support: Sony, Broncolor
• Project Managers: Geneviève Bélanger, Isabel Racine, Phil Boivin, Lisette Ladouceur
• Rigging Team: Guillaume Briand, Guillaume Allaire-Forget, Roxane Beaulieu, Elizabeth Drouin
• BTS Photos: Anna Tenne
• Videography: Danylo Bobyk, Tritam Chu Bedard, Lauren Guarneri
• Graphic Design: Emma Segal
• Digital Tech: Jessika Chiasson

Dance Team

Saxon Fraser (Choreographer), Marie-Reine Kabasha , Emmanuelle Martin, Danny de Matos, Fannie Côté, Brain Mendez, José Flores, Chad Concepcion, Ève Dupuis, Brooklyn Libao

Food and Soap Sponsors

Au 14, Santana Coffee, Gutsy Kombucha, Lola Rosa, Cafe Dei Campi, Ohana Sushi, Cafe Arhoma, Jones Cafe, Cafe Antidote, Jimmy Chan – Wok Cafe restaurants, Oneka Elements, Atelier Tonic Disinfectant

Giveaway Sponsors – (Live until Nov 4th)

• Dell – 1x Precision 5760 Workstation – (Worldwide – $3000 value)
• BenQ – 1x (SW321C Photo Monitor – (US & Canada – $2000 value) 
• Wacom – ( 5x Intuos Pro  (Small x Medium x Large)  (Worldwide – $400 value each) 
• Think Tank – (Pro Photo Bags – Worldwide – 2x $250 store credit)
• B&H – (US only – 1x $500 of store credit)
• SmugMug (Photography storage and portfolio – 5x $360 SmugMug Pro Account) 
• Flickr (Photography Community – 5x $80 Flickr Pro accounts )
• Adobe ( Creative Cloud Photography Licenses) ( 3x $120 value each)
• PhotoshopCafe (3x $100 of tutorial credit)
• Alana Lee ($400 of Digital Resources for Photographers)
• Story Art Education (lifetime membership 1x $799 value)
• Any Fstoppers tutorial (1x $299 value)
• Hernandez DreamPhotography course – (3x $200 value each)

• Niu – 1x UQI-GT electric scooter) (Excl. China – $3000 value)
• Peak Design – (Photography Accessories – Worldwide – 3x $333 of store credit) 
• Solgaard – (Sustainable Travel Gear – Worldwide – 2x $200 Store credit)
• SmugMug Prints (3x 24×36” metal print – Worldwide – 3x $1000 value)
• Dropbox (Cloud Storage – 25x $120/year – One year of Dropbox Plus Accounts ) 
• Sony – 1x Sony ZV-1 Camera (1x$750 value) – US/Canada only.

Non-Profits we’re supporting – (Learn more about the Calls to Action here)

• WWF – Demand a Global Plastics Treaty on plastic pollution
• Greenpeace – Ask President Biden to champion a #GlobalPlasticTreaty
• Oceanic Global – Nominate a business to go plastic free! 
• 5Gyres – Combat plastic misinformation by taking the free Trash Academy Masterclass!
• BreakFreeFromPlastics – Call out a top corporate polluters 
• Oceana –  Tell Amazon to offer plastic-free packaging choices
• Lonely Whale – Enter the Tom Ford Plastic Innovation Prize 
• Plastic Pollution Coalition – Demand World Leaders Take Action on Plastics at the UN Climate Change Conference
• Upstream – Call on food service venues to reopen with reuse! 
• Surfrider – Encourage your favorite restaurant to join the Ocean Friendly Restaurants program!
• Ocean Wise – Take the plastic audit challenge!
• KEAN – Fight the USA-Kenya Plastic Trade Deal, which would allow the export of plastic waste to Kenya #AfricaIsNotADumpster
• David Suzuki Foundation – Call on the Canadian government to move forward with a regulatory ban on non-essential, single-use plastics to stop plastic pollution at its source.

Volunteers

AF Lepri, Alain Wong, Alison Wong, Albert Bahrampour, Alex Tong, Anastasia Stasenko, Andre Dumouchel, Savann-Andy Son, Anna Tenne, Anne T, Anne-Marie Coulombe, Anya Okhmatovskaia, Chris Nguyen’s parents, Christine Lan, Christine Ng, Cindy Ha, Claire Bihannic, Claude Campagna Lupien, Cynthia V Tomizzi, Cyrielle Noel, Daphné Mailloux-Rousseau, Derrick Hui, Didier Kaade, Dominique Duchesne, Elizabeth Drouin, Eric Chou, Fannie Wong, Florence Debellefeuille, Gillian Richards, Giovanna Gonzalez, Jacynthe Sauvageau, Jeanette Kho, Jennifer Blackaller Ruiz, Jérémy Lizandier, Jessica D’Amore, Jimmy Vigneux, JS Bélanger, Juliette Malo, Julian Stamboulieh, Julieanna L., Karine Laurence, Karyne Paquette, Kaylee Chan, Kody Cheung, Laura Luu, Lisette Ladouceur , Louise Lefort, Lukas Jay Tang, Madelyn Lakos, Maelys Fillon, Manh T. Nguyen, Marie Thai, Marius Ortiz, Milady Oanh, Melissa Couto, Nancy Lee, Olivia Ward, Osiris Gagliano Ladouceur, Patrizio Patrizio, Roxane Beaulieu, Roxanne Maite Nault, Sam Lafrenière, Samantha Dimitraki, Sebastien Ricci, Alice Jou, Sing Wong, Talar Chahinian, T. Mai, Tommy Cheung, Tristan Gauvreau, Valerie Rosen, Victoria Kelly, Zihan Cai

Follow our featured Photoshop Artists on Instagram:  

@alanaleephoto @joelrobison @reneerobynphotography @storyartaustralia @clintonlofthouse @evacreelphotography @robertcorneliusphotography @adelynphotography @oliver_gammarart @hernandez_dreamphography @lassedesignen @tedslittledream @jrfromptc @krisanderson.art @miltonlightfarm @danillofacchini, @digitalartistdrew

Thank you everyone for making this project possible! It is only by working together that we can make a difference! Please like, comment, and share. You are part of the change we need to see in this world!

The post This three story tall giant art installation is leaking plastics into different environments appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

I posted the video on Tik Tok and unexpectedly, it blew up with over 3M views in less than a week.

Step 1: Capture silhouettes by shooting against a white background.

My mom was in charge of experimenting with fruits and vegetables. In this case, she picked the inside of Pomegranates!

The reflections in the background were created with a massive flower vase almost as tall as my mom.

Step 2: Edit, print, and cut out the silhouettes by hand.

The little silhouettes were stuck onto thin pieces of wire. We used scraps of wood that my mom found while walking in the park. We then added a couple fly swatters to help add texture and color to our cell phone flashlights.

Step 3: Make sure the lighting comes from the back!

Without lighting, everything looks flat, boring, and unconvincing. Direct cellphone light is too harsh. The secret is to always find some material to shine the light through. In this case, an old curtain we had lying around.

By playing with the camera’s white balance, we were able to accentuate bring out different colors without the help of any colored gels.

Step 4: (optional) A little bit of Smoke makes everything magical

My mom spent her days looking at random household objects to see how they could be used in unique and interesting ways.

She used aluminum foil to create a reflection inside of a takeout lid she had hoarded for years. From there, we combined it with some incense she had lying around. The final touch was to use a small translucent orange bag to create the sunset!

If you want to see more Behind The Scenes, check out the videos on TikTok or see this little compilation here:

Media Requests

• Feel free to quote and publish the photos in your online publication (please credit & link back to the original). Specific Terms of Use can be found here.
• High-Rez press images, BTS, and more can be found in this dropbox link. 
• Commercial requests and rights: suzy@suzyjohnston.com
• Follow for more on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook

The post Impossible Maternity Photos with Fruits & Vegetables appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

Receiving a takeaway cup, even when dining in –  has become so commonplace that we don’t even think twice about how little sense it makes to use take-out cups within a dine-in setting.

To help start that conversation, we decided to make a selfie-ready art piece in Singapore made from 18,000 plastic cups collected over the course of just a day and a half. These cups, collected from two dozen hawker centers across Singapore had to then be cleaned, arranged and assembled into an art installation that we titled “Plastikophobia“.

Although the word “Plastikophobia” doesn’t officially exist in any dictionary (yet), we felt like it represented how we felt about single-use plastics, especially after spending over two 14-hour days cleaning the small mountain of dirty plastic cups that we had collected with the help of a small army of volunteers.

With the help of Joshua Goh and more than three dozen volunteers, we spent the rest of the week transforming these old dirty cups into a shiny crystal cave  – in the hopes of luring unsuspecting passersbys with the promise of a pretty selfie, only to to be overcome by a feeling of Plastikophobia – an extreme aversion to single-use plastics.

With all the pieces assembled and in place, we put the installation to the test by combining a Broncolor Balloon Lamp with a contemporary dancer, Jialin Neo. With tiny LED fairly lights pulsing across the entire installation, we had to drag the shutter and put our flash on the lowest possible power setting to get the effect of a glowing earth surrounded by a sea of plastics.

Hoping to draw a connection between how the plastics that we consume on land inevitably flow into the ocean, we decided to dress up Max Pagel, one of our LED volunteers as an underwater diver complete with fins, and inverted the image to create the illusion of a swimmer inside of an ocean filled with plastics.

Curious to see how it all came together?

Check out this Behind The Scenes video explaining it all more in depth

With the installation tested and certified-photo-ready, all the remained was to hope that locals living in and around Singapore would take the time to go and visit our instagram trap. So far, local photographers and artists have already started to use #plastikophobia to ignite conversations around the plastic problem.

If you know anyone in Singapore that are looking to raise awareness for the issue in a creative way, send them to the Sustainable Singapore Galleries in the Marina Barrage from March 7th to April 18th !

@sassystrawberry, @fariwu, @theshbang
@wunderland_arts, @pip_emerald, @shirlyhamra
@eve.msz, @manuelgussmann, @achewlim

Credits:

Installation: Von Wong & Joshua Goh
Social impact Strategy: Laura Francois
Cinematography: Run Rhys
Impact Support: Zero Waste Singapore
“Team LED”:  Thomas Svitil, Max Pagel, Sonny Windstrup, Manuel Gussmann, Tobias Herbig

Models: Max Pagel and Neo JiaLing

Timelapses: Henry Poh and Chris Dickinson

Volunteer Wrangler: Karen Ng

Volunteers: Max Pagel, Sonny Windstrup, Manuel Gussmann , Hien Nguyen, Celine Suiter, Pippin Emerald, Missy Ida, Erick Kristantio, Veena Sagi, Laura Abbott, Wei Keat, Wesley Sun, Judith Lee, Inke Weissenborn, Susilowati Joenoes, Thea Widjaja, Henry Poh, Sharon Goh , Rachel van Breda, Mayara Huber, Hania MIRI, Roslina, Janis Heims, Julia Kersten, Saki , Lay Kuan, Mezame Shashin-ka, Wu Hanshi, Clare Kiersey, lim tian chew, Wilson Wong,  Clement Egyx, Mak Han Feng, Fari Wu, Lim Ming Ming, Bottamalin Zaelow, Tiffany Zeeman, Carmen Hong, Sindy Ong , Edison Ong , Egene Chong, Gui Lian En,  Veronica Sung, Daphne Ong, Sophia Guan , Alex Yeo, William Wong, Hui Jeng, Gemma Luengo, Weng Tan, Hailin, Roxane Uzureau, Cassandra AnnDragon , Amirah Aziz , Agisa Abdulla, Michelle Boo, Shan Shan, Anna Salovino, Tobias Herbig, Naomi Heng, Sikai Chen, Carisa Lam, Michael Chan, Christensen Ravee, Cheryl Lin, Anne-Laure Herrezuelo, Megan Ng, Dennis Lum, Zena Choie, Kisha Tan, Aran Dante Samus

In partnership with the Canadian High Commission and City Development Limited
Supported by the National Environment Agency (NEA) and the Public Utilities Board (PUB)

Media Requests

• Feel free to quote and publish the photos in your online publication (please credit & link back to the original). Specific Terms of Use can be found here.
• High-Rez press images, BTS and more can be found in this dropbox link. 
• Commercial requests and rights: suzy@suzyjohnston.com
• Read more about the project at Plastikophobia.com

The post This cosmic cave is an Instagram trap made from 18,000 used plastic cups appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

Sounds like a cliche little quote – but these little things really do add up.

Straws are virtually impossible to recycle in most places around the world because of how light and small they are. They’re also one of the easiest products to turn down at a bar, cafe or restaurant.

With a truckload of plastic flowing into the ocean every 60 seconds, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed – but I’ve always believed that its less about what we can’t do, and more about what we can do – even if it’s something as small as saying “No Straw please”.

Here’s the result of that thought:

Higher quality on Youtube & Vimeo |Words & Performance by Steve Connell | Video by Fox – Creative & Visuals

For my latest project, I wanted to encourage people to turn down their next straw by creating a “strawpocalypse”.

Something so large that if anybody walked by, they couldn’t help but ignore.

But first, I was going to need straws. A lot of them. At just 10$ for 100,000  straws, it would have been super convenient to buy a ton of them and figure something out – but that was clearly not an option.

Zero Waste Saigon stepped in and offered to help, and with the help of Starbucks Vietnam and hundreds of volunteers – spent over 6 months to gather a total of 168,000 straws to bring this project to life.

The result: A 3.3m (10 ft+) tall art installation representing the Parting of the Plastic Sea.

Our hope with this installation is that each and every person feels empowered to take a step towards using their last straw.

It took us almost two weeks of work to clean, organize and prepare our straws to build “The Parting of the Plastic Sea”.

The entire project began with a Facebook conversation when Julia from Zero Waste Saigon reached out to me and asked if I would collaborate with them if they helped me collect all the trash that I wanted. After Starbucks Vietnam came on board as a sponsor, all that remained was to figure out how to transform our idea from Concept to Reality.

Straws were organized by color, to represent different parts of the wave.

Green/Blue/Black for the base of the wave, White for the froth on top, Orange/Yellow for the sand and all other transparent ones as transition points in the structure.

With the help of our volunteers, we collected used plastic bags for our installation.

The plan was to use clear plastic bags to not only act as support for our straws but also to act as a diffuser for the LED lighting of our structure.

Every day, dozens of new volunteers streamed in to give thousands of discarded straws a second life.

A little assembly-line was set up and older volunteers would teach newer volunteers how to stick our straws into various different patterns to mimic the direction of the water flow.

Meanwhile, we worked with a local builder to convert our idea into reality.

Although we had designed the idea with the help of Nick Moser, a technical builder in SF and Stefan Suknjaja an escape room designer in Serbia – we still had to figure out where and how to build things in Vietnam. Luckily Fosha Zyang, a local set designer stepped in to help us out.

My hope was to create the parting of the sea to reveal the plastics hiding within.

The plastic problem is either out of sight, out of mind – or so omnipresent that it becomes invisible. I wanted to use art to tackle both angles – by creating something beautiful and unique out of an environmental tragedy.

We arranged the straws like strokes of a paintbrush, trying our best to follow the curves of the lights and waves.

This whole time, all of us had been slaving away without knowing for sure whether or not things would look good – but as the pieces slowly fell into place, we all finally breathed a sigh of relief as the waves of plastic started coming to life.

Our final touch was to add a “sun” in between the two waves, built by connecting a couple LED panels together with galvanized wire.

Our installation was given a home in the atrium of Estella Place, offering a 360 view of the installation. While it was great for foot traffic and awareness – it also meant a lot of distractions so we decided to build a white “sky” of plastics, complete with an orange sun.

Although this installation is made from straws, it isn’t just about straws. It’s about taking a first step towards paying attention to the plastic epidemic threatening the oceans we rely on.

If things don’t change by the year 2050, there could be more plastic than fish in the sea. While statistics like that can appear daunting and impossible to fight against, it all starts with small simple actions.

On the 24th of March, our installation becomes homeless. We’re hunting for a company, institution or museum to adopt it!

We believe that the fight against single-use plastics is going to go on for the next couple hundred years… and because of that, we hope to find a forever home for our installation. It’s obviously not going to be easy or cheap to transport – but if you know someone who believes in the cause – please let us know!

To see a Vlog style Behind The Scenes on how this project came to life, check out this video:

#Strawpocalypse Print Giveaway

Credits:

• Installation art by Von Wong and Zero Waste Saigon
• Sponsored by Starbucks Vietnam
• Hosted by Keppel Land

• Video: Fox – Creative and Visuals
• Spoken Word performance (video): Steve Connell
• BTS photography: Anna Tenne
• Technical Build Consultants: Nick Moser, Stefan Suknjaja, Fosha Zyong
• Set Builder: Trịnh Thiên Tân
• LED Technician: Thành Huỳnh
• Production Support: Don Le, Dave Lemke
• Special thanks to the German International School, British International School and American International School for supporting our cleanup efforts.
• Volunteers: Quinn Tran, Leanne Lim, Tam Binh, Mong Binh, Tuy Gentry Buckner, Gia Kang, Thanh Duy, Ti Hon, Nguyen Quoc Dung, Bùi Phương Nhật, Leo Pukachi, Julia Mesner Burdge, Michael Burdge, Loan Joy, Huyền KaRa, Đoàn Linh Chi, Angeli Castillo, Nguyễn Ngọc Huân, Dương Bội Linh, Matthew James Morris, Pakdi Decnud
• Models: Sebastien Burdge, Elijia Ken, Nguyen Thuy Duong (TyhD)

Media Requests

• Feel free to quote and publish the photos in your online publication (please credit & link back to the original). Specific Terms of Use can be found here.
• High-Rez press images, BTS and more can be found in this dropbox link. 
• Commercial requests and rights: suzy@suzyjohnston.com
• Read more about the project at TheStrawpocalypse.com

The post “The Parting of the Plastic Sea” an installation made from 168,000 used plastic straws appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

Telling people to “not buy more stuff” is a relatively impossible mission, after all, there’s a 550 billion $ industry telling you to do the opposite, so I came up with a slightly different approach.

Why not try to tackle the problem through emotions by simply showing people how many clothes they probably will accumulate over the course of their lifetime?

The first thing we needed to do was to gather a “lifetime of clothing”. An individual’s “lifetime closet” varied greatly based on gender, wealth, time and culture – but after studying different statistics and graphs, we decided to focus on the lifetime of clothing that an individual in a developed nation might roughly wear over the course of their lifetime:  3000 items.

Housing the clothing in an interesting way was the next challenge. Since we normally discard clothing over time, our closets are designed to only hold what we currently use; but what if we could make a closet so tall, that somebody could, in a single instant – look up and see what their lifetime of clothing might look like?

Thus the idea of creating the World’s Tallest Closet was born.

We wanted the installation to be more than just a pretty piece of art. We wanted it to become a space which could also be used to generate tangible action and to encourage individuals to think locally. Depending on where you live, clothing donations are not always the best course of action but with over 220,000 refugees in Egypt (and rising), we thought it would be best to use the installation as an opportunity to collect clothing for the duration of its life.

Over the course of five long twenty hour days, we assembled the 6000 kg steel structure, laid out 180 meters of wire, and hung up the 3000 pieces of clothes that we had collected within the Mall of Arabia in Cairo, which graciously offered to host our installation. With two massive doors describing the installation, our hope was that the structure could be experienced individually, but also easily shared online with friends and family.

The installation will be up at the Mall of Arabia, Phase 2, located between Gate 9 and the Atrium under the hashtag #TallestCloset. Individuals can come and visit the installation between the 14th of December and the 8th of January 2019! For the rest of you online, we documented the entire process with the help of Fox – Creative & Visual:

Visit the Official Website: http://www.TallestCloset.com

Special thanks to:

• NEXUS MENA for inviting us to create this project.
• The Mall of Arabia, and Marakez for hosting us.
• Mutassem from CANEX Aluminum who helped us to produce this project.
• Mohammed Hosny who helped us coordinate the collection of over 3000 individual items of clothing with the help of students from Fayoum University
• Volunteers: Karim Osama. Hassan Eldeeb, Youssef Medhat Omar, Omar Medhat Omaar, Mohammad Alsawaf, Aly Dahawy. Moe Osama, Omar Attalla

Media Requests

• Feel free to quote and publish the photos in your online publication (please credit & link back to the original).
• High-Rez press images, BTS and more can be found in this dropbox link. Specific Terms of Use can be found here.
• Commercial requests and rights: suzy@suzyjohnston.com
• Read more about the project at Clothingtheloop.org
• Interview Requests: clothingtheloop@gmail.com

The post My Friend And I Built The World’s Tallest Closet appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

” Every 60 seconds, the equivalent of a truckload of plastic enters the ocean. “

• Connect with a large organization like Greenpeace that had the clout to fight big corporations
• Do something slightly insane that could stand out from all the noise on social media
• Rally complete strangers online using extravagant art and rapid storytelling
• Ask for one minute of their time to make change happen

See how we did it (or watch on youtube):

Sign the Petition

PS. We’re giving away a couple signed prints!

Katerina was the first piece of the puzzle. 

The next step – was to collect as much plastic as possible.

We spent the next few days tying the plastics together with old fishing line that was scavenged from the dumps of the Gouvia Marina.

We tested our setup at the Marina, where Katerina and her rigger Spiros Badios hung off a massive boat crane.

There, we discovered first hand how hard it was to keep the plastics from floating all over the place.

We had to find a way to transport the plastics across the island without getting them tangled.

And carefully place them around the most dramatic caves we could find for Katerina to hang from

To illustrate how plastics inevitably flow from land into the sea, despite our best efforts to stop them.

To keep the plastics from escaping, we had to tie them down to larger bottles that we filled with rocks that acted as anchors.

For this project, we were able to retrieve all the plastics we tossed out…

But in the real world, it’s becoming impossible to keep up with. 

Please join us in asking companies to stop producing so much plastic.

Media Requests

• Feel free to quote and publish the photos in your online publication (please credit & link back to the original). Video string-outs are available upon request.
• High-rez press images, BTS and more can be found in this dropbox link. Specific Terms of Use can be found here.
• Commercial requests and rights: suzy@suzyjohnston.com
• Interview requests: ben@vonwong.com, jfela@greenpeace.org or soldatou@gmail.com

Credits

• Creative Direction: Von Wong & Katerina Soldatou
• Produced in collaboration with Greenpeace
• Cinematography: Valentina Vee
• Rigging: Spiros Badios
• Additional Footage: Christophe Anagnostopoulous, Aleksandar Arbajter, John Dela Torre, Happy Clickzz , Max Mwy, 溫子揚 
• BTS Photos: Anna Tenne, Spiro Korifo Sueref
• Sound Engineer: Andrew Kesler
• Color Grading: Adam Frimer
• Volunteers: Eleni Ioannidou, Foteini Zaglara, Aleksandar Arbajter, Antony Andriotis, George kamelakis, Marjan Hoogendoorn, Constantina Berdoussi, George Koroxenidis, Efi Kampioti, Willy Zwaard, Chryssalis Eddie, Giannis Loizou, Christophe Anagnostopoulos, Minas Xax, Katia Angelopoulou, Theodoros Boukas, Simon Allaway, Katerina Alepa, Vaios Vitos, Anastasia Loukrezi, Ian Smith, Lesley Cummings, Xenia Tombrou, Nina Loss, Marilena Agathou, Iakovos Ioannidis, Eleana Dimopoulou, Spiro Korifu Sueref, Sophia Michalopoulou, Daphne Desy, Dimitri @ Marina Gouvia, Angel Young, Simon Allaway, Genovefa Theodora Cheimariou, Yannis Filippas, Marilena Agathou

Special thanks to:

• Dimitri at the Gouvia Marina for providing us with a space and lunch for the entire week for all the volunteers.
• Xenia Tombrou with Garbage Art Corfu for finding the schools to provide us with all the plastics
• Sophia Michalopoulou from Mermaids Corfu for helping us find used fishing nets
• Marjan Hoogendoorn & Peter Kraan with Ionian Sailing Adventures for helping us find all the sailing boats Free Life and Annabel
• Theodoros Boukas with Darinka Sailing for finding us a Spinnaker and letting us use his boat in one of the photos
• Willy Zwaard for opening up her house for volunteers to crash in
• Spiros Lavranos for making sure all the bottles were recycled after our project
• Stamatis Chalkias & son for giving us a truck to transport all our plastic bottles
• The Takis Taverna Family for hosting our entire group every night for dinner
• Jen Fela and Alkis Kafetzis at Greenpeace for believing in the project and helping us push it through
• You, the viewers, for joining us on this campaign to end plastics.
• Want to join a future project? Make sure to join my Telegram broadcasts: t.me/thevonwong

The post Every 60 Seconds, This Much Plastic Enters The Ocean. appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

Once called the Tak Fat garment factory – it is now being renovated and converted into a creative coworking space in Cambodia.

When it went bankrupt in 2009, thousands and thousands of pounds of brand new clothes were abandoned.

I’m always hunting for new projects to work on. When I met Laura Francois on the TedX stages in Penang, I offered to help with her mission to fight against fast fashion… on the condition that she find me the raw materials to work with. Somehow, with the help of an ethical clothing company called Dorsu, she stumbled across this gem.

We wanted to give these mouldy clothes a second chance.

The first step was figuring out what materials we had available. This meant sorting through bags and bags of rat-infested clothes laying all the pieces out on the ground for us to work through.

And start a brand new conversation.

I didn’t know this prior to meeting Laura but fashion is one of the biggest polluters on the planet.  This means that each piece of clothing we buy has a hidden environmental cost to the air that we breathe and the water that we drink.

Volunteers, many that hardly spoke any English, joined us in our quest.

With the help of Facebook, Instagram and Telegram, we reached out to the local community and invited them to join us on our quest. Some volunteers came from as far as Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore to come give us an extra hand.

We only had access to basic tools – like fishnet, bamboo and rope.

We bought our supplies from a local market close by. Since we never found a corporate sponsor, we had to try and find the most economical way to hold the entire structure together so we stuck to the basics, troubleshooting as we went.

But with the help of some sketchy scaffolding and a little bit of experimentation…

At 1$ a day to rent a piece of scaffolding, sketchy was an understatement. Nevertheless, by the end of the project – we had become experts at building it up and tearing it back down in record speed.

Combined with some practical effects and photography magic

We used flour to create a natural mist around the installation to make the scene look like a rushing waterfall.

We were able to transform these forgotten clothes into brand new installations.

It’s hard to believe but it takes 2700 L of water to produce a single cotton t-shirt.

We simply wanted to create installations that would remind people of where their clothes were born.

Built out of bamboo and strips of cloth, our tree was the simplest of all installations and on many ocassions we were worried if it would fit in with the others.

After 1.5 years of work to bring this project to life, we realized one thing

By placing a single light with an orange gel, hidden behind our tree of clothes with a little bit of smoke bleeding in, we were able to transform a boring hallway into something more magical.

That every one of us has the power to simply wear fewer clothes.

See how this project came to life, and learn more about what you can do about it at clothingtheloop.org

Media Requests

• Feel free to quote and publish the photos in your online publication (please credit & link back to the original). Video stringouts are available upon request.
• High-rez press images, BTS and more can be found in this dropbox link. Specific Terms of Use can be found here.
• Commercial requests and rights: suzy@suzyjohnston.com
• Interview requests: ben@vonwong.com

Credits

The post Where are your clothes born? appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

At least, that was the case in 2010. Electronic waste is the fastest growing municipal waste stream in the world. Today, that number is far higher and the only way to alleviate the situation is getting people to talk more about it. 

Unfortunately, e-waste doesn’t make for very interesting dinner conversation. I wanted to change that. 

All I needed was access to a lifetime of electronic waste.

At SXSW in 2017, I learned that Dell had the world’s largest global recycling program. They were hosting a series of impact-focused sessions to talk about how artists and individuals were collaborating with them to help reduce waste and encourage recycling.

As someone dedicated to collaborating with responsible corporations having a positive social impact, I was immediately interested to learn more.

I chased down Sarah Gilliam from their Corporate Social Responsibility team in search for more information. She explained to me how they offer free e-waste recycling in almost 80 different countries, but that their biggest challenge was getting more people to recycle. 

After all, how do you convince people that recycling e-waste can be cool?

Video by Valentina Vee, Cinematography by Adam Frimer.

Giveaway is now over but we have prints available, at cost!

Perhaps the first step was to show how past electronics had the potential to power future devices.

Dell found a way, called the “Closed Loop Recycling Process“, where they developed the ability to salvage plastics and gold from old electronics to be recycled into new computer parts – essentially using the past to power the future. I decided to use that as a starting point.

We were given 4100 lbs of e-waste for this project, the approximate amount of e-waste an American might use over their lifetime.

Dell reached out to Wistron GreenTech, one of their recycling partners in Dallas, and asked them if we could borrow a room and a couple bins of e-waste collected by their recycling program. 

50 volunteers came over the course of 10 days to help us sort through all the materials that we borrowed.

We found our volunteers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Some, drove from as far as 12 hours away to be a part of the project, working over 10 hours a day… including evenings and weekends!

Our structures were built with simple tools, paint and wood.

Our volunteers would help to either cut, paint, sort or screw in pieces of electronic waste. One of the most tedious structures to build was our portal, where each arch would take up to 6 hours to decorate with valuable circuit boards.

The structures were built to work from only one angle

With limited time and budget, David Jeter – our master builder – decided to use forced perspective to make our structures look far longer and deeper than they actually were. From the sides, you can see how incomplete the structure actually is. 

Colorful document folders taped onto flashes brought by our photography volunteers were used to light our set.

Lighting was improvised using flashes that I brought, along with whatever flashes, clamps and stands the volunteers brought. We placed the most powerful flash we had, a Broncolor Move with an orange gel, bouncing off the back of the white wall as our main flash.

We built patterns on the ground using chalk, rope and a yardstick

I met Andreas a sand artist on the beach a few years back. Though I knew what I wanted to create, I didn’t know how – so I sent him my concept doodle and asked him how to make it. Within the hour he told me how: Concentric circles around a single point, followed by lines at evenly spaced angles, skipping every second intersection.

Using a staple gun, we built a wall of peripherals – Mice, Adapters, and Wires

Allison Blue, Henna artist by trade, but bodypainter for this project helped us design geometric patterns out of the mess of cables that we were given.

Bodypainting and makeup took over 8 hours in the unheated warehouse

Clara Cloutier, our model had to stay near motionless the entire time as Bodypainter Allison Blue and Makeup Artist Tamsen Rae transformed her into a futuristic cyborg.

With a leaf blower borrowed from Home Depot, we were able to add movement to the image.

Our smallest volunteer, Tricia, was able to hide from the camera by crouching down low behind Clara.

The final detail, was to tape a flash onto a volunteer’s drone to get the light into the perfect position

Although we had never tried to fly a drone with a payload before, Mital, one of the volunteers encouraged us to give it a shot anyways. Adam, our videographer, was the only one of us confident enough to give it a shot.

Our sets lasted only one day before being put back into Dell’s recycling machine.

It took only 4 hours to clean up 10 days of hard work – but the images will hopefully live on forever and empower every individual to tell their friends and family to Rethink electronic waste, Recycle them responsibly, so that responsible companies like Dell can Revive them as brand new computer parts.

Please help us spread the word. Your voice can make the difference!

(If you want to purchase these prints AT COST you can pick them up here: https://www.vonwong.com/Store)

#RethinkRecycleRevive

PS. We’re giving away postcards to those that donate their electronic waste. (ENDED)

PPS. We’re also giving away 3 HUGE 24×36″ metallic prints to lucky winners who help us share our video! (ENDED)

The Perpetual Recycling Machine Photoshoot

Media Requests

• Feel free to quote and publish the photos on your online publication (please credit & link back to the original). Video stringouts are available upon request.
• High-rez press images, BTS and more can be found in this dropbox link. Specific Terms of Use can be found here.
• If you want to reach out to Dell for any more information: Carly.Tatum@dell.com
• Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 BTS videos with more information on the project can be found on my youtube channel.
• Commercial requests and rights: suzy@suzyjohnston.com
• Interview requests: ben@vonwong.com

Credits:

Huge props to Dell for making this project possible and for providing a simple responsible recycling solution for all!

Creative Director / Photographer: Benjamin Wong
Video: Valentina Vee
Producer: Chris Hatchett
Cinematography: Adam Frimer
Additional footage by Zack Santagate, Greg Royar, Valentina Vee
Model: Clara Cloutier
Hair and Makeup: Tamsen Rae Makeup Artist / Cosmetic Tattooist
Bodypaint: Alliebee Henna
Set Design: David Jeter
Sound Design and Audio Mix: Andrew Kesler
BTS Photography Anna Tenne Photography
Executive Assistant: Joanna Herr
Account Executive: Suzy Johnston + Associates

Team Dell: Sarah Gilliam, Kelly McCarthy, Maryann Overath

Volunteers:
Paul Martin, Mehreen Rizvi, Derek VanAlthuis, Brett Vance, Natalie Ramsey, Christa Lynn Sadeghian, Angel Young, Nick Strain, Ning Wang, Mital Patel, Fernando G Trueba, Daisy Salas, Loise Lane Balilis, Rebekah Beaty, Patrick Carreon, RJ Alvarade, Rabia Fatima, Ericson Vuong, Dennis Vuong, Mary Alummootti, Melissa Keomoungkhoun, Jem Grisham, Timothy Marek, Jillian Marek, Alyssa Jeandron, Jon Rockwood, Chris Cullnane III, Marshall Walker, Tricia Sukhabut, Sydney Sukhabut, Rebecca King, Eric Boggs

Special thanks for Wistron Greentech Corp. in McKinney, Texas for all their support on this project.

Want to join a future project? Make sure to join my Telegram broadcasts: t.me/thevonwong

Recycle your E-Waste today: dell.com/recycle

The post 4100lbs of E-Waste resurrected. Trillions to go. appeared first on Von Wong Blog.

The laundry that we do every single day is the cause!

94% of American tap water contains invisible plastic fibers.

Tiny plastic fibers in our clothing – polyester, nylon, spandex to name a few – escape every time we do our laundry, and come right back into the water we drink because they’re too small to be captured by wastewater treatment centers.

Despite that, not even the most eco-friendly washing machine companies have come up with a solution.

It’s time to let these companies know that their consumers (you!) – care and want a solution and we’re hoping that art can be the perfect conversation starter.

Just click on the grey areas below to fill out our form!

I first learned about toxic laundry at a retreat hosted by the National Academy of Sciences. Professor Slakey, a lecturer from Georgetown University talked about a team of young students he was mentoring that were so bothered by what they had learned that they designed a Fiber Filter capable of capturing invisible pieces of plastic in our water. I was blown away that kids were trying to solve a global problem that I hadn’t even heard about and offered to help them raise awareness for the issue.

A few conversations later,  I hopped onto a plane to DC to try and tackle this newly discovered threat.

Or see on youtube

While in DC, I soaked in more sobering facts from the students.

I learned that by 2025, the world’s synthetic fiber production will double – so too will the amount of microfibers in our water supply. And it’s not just about avoiding tap water… it’s also starting to infiltrate our salt and beer.

The worst part was that there was no solution. Very few companies were taking responsibility, and all the consumer could do was support initiatives like the Fiber Filter, Cora Ball or Guppy Friend.

Despite the many awareness campaigns explaining the problem, none offered a large scale solution.

Convincing wastewater treatment centers around the country seemed too daunting, government legislation would take forever and controlling all synthetic fiber manufacturing was completely unrealistic.

What seemed realistic though was challenging environmentally conscious corporations positioned to make a difference. All we had to do was attract their attention and ask them to #FixToxicLaundry.

There’s only one thing left to do. For you to join the movement and challenge them to see which one replies first.

I truly believe that if consumers care, corporations will react and that together, we can come together and make a difference.

The project started off extremely simple.

We first started with tentacles that were designed by Lee Deslisle, a local volunteer with a background in costume design. They were made out of recycled cardboard, wire and fishing line. They were then dressed up in used clothing supplied by Goodwill DC and an independent clothing drive organized by Carrie, one of our volunteers. The structures were  supported with Avenger C-stands and Manfrotto Flex Arms.

Over the course of ten days, we transformed what used to be a biology lab into a full-fledged monster assembly line.

The three students, (Left to right), Jaime, Lola and Carter, juggled finals, their fiber filter research and our photoshoot to help bring the project to life.

After many days of trial, error and iteration our final designs started to emerge with inspirations drawn from the angler fish (designed by Lola), the creepy tendrils from Stranger Things, and some simple snakes.

The sets took hours to design as we had to line up the tentacles perfectly in the camera so that they would look perfect.

Small flashes were placed inside various monsters to give them the eerie glow that would bring them to life.

We borrowed a small pocket projector, clamped it to the ceiling and projected the words BEWARE onto the floor so that the warning would be more obvious to the corporations we were challenging.

Cotton balls were dipped in red food coloring, torn up and glued to wire created the creepy veins that we needed.

And in a lovely twist of events, Zaida and Kinley who came to model the unsuspecting victims, were the daughters of Professor Slakey – the person who introduced me to the whole project in the first place.

Over the course of the week, over 30 volunteers came and volunteered day and night to bring this project to life.

Now that the entire project is done, only one thing remains for us to do:

Spread the word as far and wide as possible.

Media Requests:

• Feel free to quote and publish the photos in your online publication as long as you are only using them for personal non-commercial use (please credit & link back to the original post).
• High-rez press images, BTS and more can be found in this dropbox link. Specific Terms of Use can be found here.
• Commercial requests and rights: suzy@suzyjohnston.com
• Interview requests: ben@vonwong.com
• Looking for a video to share on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter? Use this one: https://www.facebook.com/thevonwong/videos/10155458044968515/

Stranger Things Giveaway #FixToxicLaundry

Credits:

• Creative director: Benjamin Von Wong
• Cinematography: Mario Fabbri
• Video Editor: Run Rhys
• Logistics & Creators of the Fiber Filter: Lola Bushnell, Carter Cortazzi, Jamie Farrell
• Models: Zaida & Kinley Slakey
• Chief Monster Designer: Lee Delisle
• Second Camera: Susan Lin
• Stylist: Amanda Deprez
• Sound Design and Audio Mix: Andrew Kesler
• BTS Photography: Tina Leu
• Retouching: Lightfarm Brazil
• Assistants: Donnamaria Robinson Jones, Tina Tran Nguyen, Tina Leu, Gwen Meehan, Thomas Jakob Brablec, Carrie Desormeaux Wang, Sami Bell, Amira Nguyen , Brandon On, Danielle, Karina Perez, Henry Oviedo, Lizzie Marie, Josh Seifert, Dre Rolle, Eric Liu , Alex Au, Paul Henderson, Kali Alonso, Fernando Alonso, Sean Wang, Francis Slakey, Gina Slakey

Special thanks to Manfrotto for the stands, clamps and arms, Goodwill DC for lending us some clothing, the Girl Scout Council of the Nations Capital for organizing a clothing drive, Georgetown University for allowing us to borrow their facilities, and Foreground Web for helping us design our challenge web-form!

Gear Used for this Project:

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