Eco Laboratory

Lithuanian Climate Advocates decided to run an awareness campaign focusing on art and garbage. They wanted people to realise that turning one’s trash into treasure can help prevent climate change.

The Climate Advocates enlisted artists to show people that there was still life in items which we may just consider broken or no longer of any use. Eco Laboratory believes that one of the ways we can fight climate change and over-consumerism is through creativity. The artists were given the challenge of converting old items into new goods. A number of events took place to launch this idea. The first was in June 2009 at a European Street Fair in Vilnius. The Lithuanian designer Mantas Lesauskas transformed a pile of old, thrown-away automobile tyres into a sports motorbike. The motorbike could then be used in a children’s playground or as a design feature in a garage. This was followed by a number of workshops and an exhibition at the British Embassy featuring selected items created by the project participants. The team have continued spreading their message using a specially transformed second-hand caravan which has become an eco-caravan. The ecocaravan has travelled to many sporting and musical events to inform festival attendees about climate change and to organise workshops to demonstrate how to bring new life in to things which otherwise contribute to the vast stream of the world’s waste. If you wish to try to bring new life to your old objects visit the project website www.ekolaboratorija.lt.