Consumerist Christmas Tree. Durham 2013

In November we went to festivals around the world… first we visited Glow in Eindhoven where we once again displayed our Portable River and from there we went to Lumiere in Durham, to carry out a large-scale piece, which transcended the dates of the festival to continue to illuminate the city during the Christmas holidays.

We based this piece on the installation Plastic garbage guarding the museum, that we had already carried out at the Gewerbemuseum, But this time we wanted to give a double edge to our complaint, on the one hand the massive use of plastic bags and the consequences this has on the environment, and on the other hand, the excessive and unnecessary consumption that occurs during the Christmas holidays.

This piece made complete sense not only for the dates, but also because the space allocated to us for its location was the shopping area in the center of the city and was under the sponsorship of the association of merchants, which had requested that the piece be maintained during the Christmas period.

During the whole period that we were working on the piece, in addition, it coincided with the garbage service strike in Madrid, so, for even more reasons, we displayed our total solidarity with the workers.

To carry out our giant Consumerist Christmas Tree, of course, we needed the collaboration of many residents, who had to give us the bags that were accumulating from the shopping prior to Christmas.

To encourage donations, a campaign was organized prior to its promotion, in which people were invited, to exchange plastic bags for cloth ones designed for the occasion. In this way we got about 4,000 units, of which we ended up using 3,000. In addition, to give them volume, we filled them with clear plastic, generated by the surrounding shops during the assembly dates, the amount of plastic packaging that is discarded by the shops during these dates is beyond imagination.

To carry out the assembly process, we reached out to residents associations and colleges to come to our workspace, a store that had been empty and which served to host a workshop, which more than a workspace seemed like a giant ball park, where what one most fancied, was to dive into the bags and remain buried in them. With a lot of help, we completed the work in a week.

Once we had bags filled and closed up, we went out into the street, more precisely, to the Prince Bishops Shopping Centre plaza, where a huge, 9 meter high, conically shaped, prefabricated structure that we had to cover with our plastic materials waited for us.

Afterwards, we only had to put the lights inside them and our plasticized, recycled Christmas tree was ready, made out of piles of consumerist bags, that they could have ceased to manufacture if conscientious people took their own bags with them when they went shopping.

In addition, to illuminate the entire path that led to the tree, we hung some strings of lights that we covered with the leftover bags, turning simple low consumption light bulbs, into colorful garlands of light which brought to the street a festival like environment.

Once the Holidays are over, all the plastics will be conveniently recicled and the structures will be reused, who knows for what.

We enjoyed ourselves like children with the bags and we spent a few incredible days shared with resident artists and friends of the organization.

We want to thank all the friends of Artichoke, both to the organizers as well as to those who worked with us on the project, whose professionalism and good humor made everything very easy for us. To the residents who helped us and shared their good humor and hard work, to the people of Prince Bishops Shopping Center, who in addition to making the installation possible supported us logistically at all times, to our dear friend Koldo, who was able to make everything function like clockwork without any kind of stress, to Antonio, who accompanied us and provided us with one of the most enjoyable nights that we remember,… and of course… to the inhabitants of Durham who gave us their bags for a good cause.

The photos, which could not be otherwise, are by Gustavo Sanabria.

This piece was comissioned by Artichoke, for Lumiere, Durham 2013.

Time of installation: 13 days
Damages: none.
Exhibition time: 2 mounths

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