a community expression of recycled gratitude

In association with the City of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture Public Art Residency at the 27th Avenue Solid Waste Management Facility, artist Ann Morton has orchestrated a community project that builds awareness of the city’s generation of recyclable trash through an invitation to participants to make and offer their gratitude to the workers at 27th Ave. – who touch and sort this trash each day, and on whose work we rely to keep order in our daily lives.

Participating makers crafted individual gestures of gratitude in the form of flowers made from their own recyclable trash – plastics, aluminum, cardboard. Once made, these flowers were assembled as a cascading textile-like display that replicates the seemingly unending flow of recyclables we generate and that these workers sort everyday – but, this flow was transformed into seemingly endless gratitude, because each flower carries a note of thanks from its maker. After the installation, selected flowers will be re-assembled into gifts to present to each worker.

By learning more about best practices in our own recycling,  we can all support the City’s Re-Imagine Phoenix initiative in its goal of diverting 40% of this waste from the landfill by 2020.

Click here to see how thousands of makers participated!